Reviews & Ratings for
Love is Colder Than Death More at IMDbPro »Liebe ist kälter als der Tod (original title)

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9 reviews in total

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17 out of 19 people found the following review useful:
A Film Noir Masterpiece!, 25 December 2005

Author: telekon-3 from United States

This film is not for every one. If you are mostly familiar with American Fim Noir or Gangster movies... Don't Go Here! This is one dark, moody, cynical and depressing film. Yet, that being said, every lingering shot and silent moment has more layers in it then most entire movies do today.

The story here is very simple; two criminals meet when they are recruited by a crime syndicate. They become friends, we find out one is a pimp and the other is a killer for hire. Later, needing a place to stay, the killer falls in love with the pimp's girlfriend (also a prostitute). The three begin to work as a crime trio with the killer doing most of the dirty work.

But the focus here is not the story. Fassbinder subtly allows the three character's relations towards each other become the real story. The people in this film have sold their souls to criminal life a long time ago. Yet, like everyone else in the world, they still struggle for there inner desires, and the need to feel something real.

This movie quite obviously had a very low budget. As a person is shot we, rarely see an exploding squib or even a blank cartridge being fired. The prime focus is the actor facial expressions and reactions. (Equally as powerful, yet more creative then seeing blood) The camera work is extremely minimal, yet far more revealing of the characters subconscious as they walk down a park or into a supermarket.

This is not your modern day first time film maker or film school graduate. Don't expect a Chris Nolan or a Quinten Tarentino. LOVE IS COLDER THAN DEATH, does borrow from certain film genres but it is so uniquely its own film, and creates such a beautiful sense of detachment that has rarely been attempted in film.

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13 out of 14 people found the following review useful:
cold and brilliant, 5 December 2005

Author: oslane from United States

Fassbinder's debut feature seems to be strongly influenced by early Godard films like Breathles or Band of Outsiders in both its gritty black and white style and references to the gangster/noir genres. But where Godard's characters have a playful sense of humor, trying to act their gangster fantasies wearing fedoras and poorly executing non-thought out crimes to the tune of a swinging soundtrack and beautiful woman, Love Is Colder than Death does all with a fridgid, robotic sense of cool. Every shot is like a black and white photo where the acting is like posing in front of mirror before the action (or one of the characters)gets executed. The film is pretty avante-garde in using mostly completely static shots and the characters pretty much act "too cool". They just stare at you as you're supposed to react, then when there's an action, you get surprised and realise it's still in the movie. Forget that the plot is simple, threadbare even, this is an atmosphere piece.

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7 out of 9 people found the following review useful:
Dark vision of Fassbinder's cinema future, 12 March 2006

Author: dirtypearl from United States

The place is Germany 1969. Fassbinder would direct his first full-length atmospheric piece. The film probably only should be viewed by those already interested in his cannon of work. The dry characters and dialogue work well within it's context but for the primitive viewer or the non-convert, this won't win any awards. I had saw the film the first time over a year ago and thought it was OK. I decided to re-watch it last night and walked away with completely a different opinion than before. Fassbinder knew the importance of the non-dialogue scenes and how to make them stand out, with expressionistic photography and stark settings. The music used here in the film is also first rate in adding to the mood. Ulli Lommel, Hanna Schygulla and Katrin Shaake (sp?) are all wonderful here. Fassbinder's role seems to be playing himself, like in all of his work. I rate this film very highly though my favorites of his work are: "Beware of Holy Whore", "Whity" and "Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant".

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4 out of 5 people found the following review useful:
Fassbinder's stark debut examines nihilist criminals, 30 June 2009

Author: timmy_501 from United States

R.W. Fassbinder's debut feature Love is Colder Than Death was shot on a very limited budget and it shows. For the most part Fassbinder seems to have made the lack of budget work for him rather than against him however. Faced with a lack of funds, Fassbinder apparently decided to make this film as austere as possible. The film is shot in black and white but it uses less blacks and greys than any other film I can think of; the use of white (especially in backgrounds) adds to the film's stark tone as does the lack of camera movement. I've never seen a film in the crime genre that utilizes long takes and the stationary camera the way this one does.

In general I don't like crime movies that focus solely on the criminals but I found this one fascinating because these people didn't seem to be acting out of the usual petty motivations; rather, each of the three main characters seemed to be harboring a hatred for mankind. This is expressed in the contempt they show when they steal some trivial items in a store; rather than quietly pocket these things they choose to go to elaborate means to distract the shopkeepers and steal things right in front of them. It's not enough to take something from someone else: they also have to prove their superiority while making their victim into a fool. I found their misanthropy horrifyingly fascinating and that alone sets this film apart from other, similar films.

This film has been compared to the work of Jean Luc Godard and with good reason: these characters reminded me of the ones in films like Breathless and Pierrot Le Fou. Still, the characters in Love is Colder than Death are fundamentally different from the ones in those films because Godard's characters come across as lazy and selfish people who can't fit in while Fassbinder's characters come across as more ideologically motivated nihilist misanthropes.

The film's Spartan aesthetic is used to accentuate the characters' cynical attitudes in at least a couple of ways. The characters are often seen in front of structures so white they resemble the void: thus the exterior of the places they inhabit reflects the emptiness felt by these people who have no purpose or emotion. Another nice touch is the lack of visual representation of the gunshot wounds. At first it seemed like this lack could be entirely explained by budgetary concerns but on further reflection that's just silly: Fassbinder didn't have to show the bodies after they were shot but he usually did because he had a purpose in doing so. The gunshots seem to have had no effect because the shooters have no empathy for their victims, they care so little about them that the wounds don't even register with them.

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2 out of 3 people found the following review useful:
Fassbinder's take on the Nouvelle Vague, 30 June 2009

Author: Perception_de_Ambiguity from The Divided States of Earth

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

„They are people, who, to be able to live what seems worth living,

play roles that aren't really their own.

Of course this is something sad, then again it also is something beautiful."

- Rainer Werner Fassbinder (translated)

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'Liebe ist kälter als der Tod' is about criminal rebels who don't want to conform and who regard freedom as their highest good that is worth protecting at all costs. This is unmistakably shown in the beginning when a syndicate wants to recruit Franz and Bruno, but they refuse to join despite much pressure being put on them.

They live the image of rebellious Hollywood icons from James Cagney to James Dean. Apart from their freedom appearances are important. Suits, hats, sunglasses, guns and gangster-ish behavior they can not live without.

Franz killed a Turk and now he has problems with the police and the Turk's brother. He gets those problems out of the way by killing more people. A great many of them. Bruno helps him. Bruno became Franz' best friend. Franz kills the Turk's brother. Bruno kills a witness of Franz' murder. They don't bother to do things subtly. When they get guns but can't pay for them they just kill the dealer, no big deal. Another obstacle out of the way. When they are stopped by a police man they could have easily lied their way out of it. But nah, *BANG*.

Gunshots, although numerous, seem very little present. Either they are made off-screen or the film cuts to the next scene before the shot. Impacts from gunshots are not visible, the victims just break down and the film immediately moves on.

This makes us think of the main characters as the cool rebels that they see themselves as, rather than as criminals which is how the people around them see those characters. The style of the film very much supports the characters' self-image. It makes us see the things the way they see it. They think they are in a gangster movie, so the film is a gangster movie. It's very much French New Wave - the culture is that of American movies and myth - but the setting is Germany and the values are of the German student movement (aka the 68er-Bewegung), or more precisely Fassbinder's view of it. Apart from their "acts of rebellion" their lives are pretty empty and they clearly have nothing to live for, making them rebels without a cause.

Overall the film plays a lot like Godard's 'Bande à part', just more serious in tone and more mundane. There is no lofty dialogue.

The film is made to look plot less. Stuff happens but connections between scenes are left unpronounced. It feels like a film of plot-fragments. The "Turks plot" doesn't seem to be of major importance. The first time it was referred to almost in passing and the second time when Franz is interrogated about it by the police the focus seems to be a different one. Even when they kill the Turk's brother it is far from obvious who that man is. It's only in retrospect that all this comes together to form a plot.

By the end we find out that Bruno was sent by the syndicate to make friends with Franz and to make him join the syndicate and that this is what the (absurd) plot was about. Fact is that there is a plot, but the film is very concerned with being ambiguous about it. Even in the last ten minutes when the film finally starts to uncover things one crucial dialogue is almost unintelligible because the music plays over it too loudly. And then the scene of the attempted bank robbery which is the most crucial moment in the plot is edited frantically, making it difficult to see what exactly is going on.

To make sense of it you have to put together the puzzle after the movie is over. I consider this a weak move, as it makes the first time viewing unnecessarily little enjoyable. Gladly RWF didn't repeat this approach in any of the many other films that I have seen of his.

As for the meaning of the title; love is colder than death. It is Johanna (Franz' girlfriend) who looks through Bruno and his plan to get Franz to become a part of the syndicate. What binds Johanna and Franz is love, Bruno and Franz are bound by death - Bruno, who murders for Franz. The "coldness" of the title refers to the ability to see things as they are, to look through deceptions. Johanna, with her love for Franz, is less deceived by Bruno than Franz is. Love is colder than death. Not even by the end of the movie Franz knows what's going on. The film closes with him calling Johanna a whore, probably assuming that she betrayed Bruno out of jealousy for the close friendship between Franz and Bruno.

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5 out of 9 people found the following review useful:
Fassbinder's first movie - an homage to Film Noir and the French Nouvelle Vague, 11 September 2005

Author: winblows89 from Germany

A man (Fassbinder himself) is sitting on an armchair, reading the newspaper. Another man walks into frame asks Franz (Fassbinder's character's name) for a cigarette and when he's told 'no!' he takes the newspaper and drops it down on the floor. Franz gets up and beats up the guy. The plot continues: Franz is ordered into this room to work for a criminal syndicate but he wants to be his only chief himself. Franz meets Bruno, a man who works for the syndicate, and they become very good friends. Some days later they meet again and we recognize that Franz is a pimp. Bruno falls in love with Franz' girlfriend (played by Hanna Schygulla) and together they start to rob banks. It is the last coup when Hanna Schygulla calls the police. Bruno is shooten down by some policemen and Fassbinder and Schygulla flee in their car.

The plot is almost as short as Godard's 'Breathless' and I think that that was what Fassbinder really wants to show with this film. When you cinema after seeing this film you don't remember a plot but very much more a feeling - a feeling of social isolation of the main characters, a feeling of loneliness.

In my opinion this is one of the best Fassbinder movies, even if it's not appraised as that good by most of the critics.

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0 out of 1 people found the following review useful:
Joyless, but OK, 24 November 2009

Author: wvisser-leusden from Netherlands

'Liebe ist kalter als der Tod (= German for 'love is colder than death'), from 1969, is Rainer Werner Fassbinder's first film.

Shot in black and white, it sometimes shows a little 'wooden' and imperfect. Nevertheless it surely contains all well-known Fassbinder features: a very German setting, slow speed, serious, with a strong touch of realism & pessimism.

Although Fassbinder himself extensively acts, female lead Hanna Schygulla by far adds the greatest value here. After 'Liebe', she should feature in many other Fassbinder-productions.

This film's somewhat weird title nevertheless fully covers its joyless plot. Strangely this lack of fun is somehow accentuated by Schygulla's brief nude appearances. They make an unusual contrast, already revealing Fassbinder's genius at this early stage in his career.

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3 out of 13 people found the following review useful:
It will hit You, 1 May 2003
Author: m67165

This is movie is rather cold in its humor. It is very much dated in its style, but somehow manages to come across as very true to some angst that may well be part of the collective unconscious. You can see that they had not much money to do it, and that they did not mind to let it show. Maybe not for every viewer, but certainly a treat if you like the craziest movies of that time.

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4 out of 40 people found the following review useful:
amateurish and lame, 3 August 2005

Author: atsab_99 from United States

this movie sucked. it's got a halfassed scenario which seems to be invented solely for the purposes of a young man (RWF) to make himself look cool and show a chick's tits.

The scenery is bleak and the dialogue dull/forced. The whole time the three main characters constantly try to act cool, in a very dated way. There is occasional action, and it is staged very poorly. Gunshots/punching sounds are never timed right, and one scene even fully shows a guy getting shot, without any puncturing or bleeding. He just wiggles around to the soundtrack of gun noises.

You could say "the pacing is slow", but that would be an understatement. Often there is nothing going on for several minutes... one scene in particular presents RWF and co. walking down a road, smoking, not saying anything, for 3 minutes. Lots of stuff like this. These guys clearly didn't know what they were doing. Extremely unprofessional... I wonder how many of his early films are just him and his friends running around, being boring?

If you're a hardcore Fassbinder fan, i guess it might give you a kick to see his painful first efforts. I would stick to later, more figured-out stuff, or the enjoyable first 2 short films.

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