Die Niklashauser Fart (1970) (TV)

User Rating:

5.8/10   

Directors:

Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Michael Fengler

Writers:

Rainer Werner Fassbinder (writer)
Michael Fengler (writer)

Release Date:

26 October 1970 (West Germany)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

Can a small group of people start a proletarian revolution, asks the "Black Monk" in a leather jacket...

Plot Keywords:

Virgin Mary | Pedophile | Bishop | Revolutionary | Burned At The Stake

Cast

Michael König	...	Hans Boehm
Hanna Schygulla	...	Johanna
Margit Carstensen	...	Magarethe
Michael Gordon	...	Antonio
Günther Kaufmann	...	Leader of the farmers
Kurt Raab	...	Bishop
Franz Maron	...	Magarethe's husband
Walter Sedlmayr	...	Pastor
Karl Scheydt	...	Niklashausen citizen
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Peter Berling	...	Executioner
Ingrid Caven	...	Screaming girl
Carla Egerer	...	Epileptic girl (as Carla Aulaulu)
Michael Fengler	...	Farmer
Sigi Graue	...	Farmer
Chris Karrer	...	Himself (as Amon Düül II)
Peter Leopold	...	Himself (as Amon Düül II)
Magdalena Montezuma	...	Penthesilea
Peer Raben	...	Monsignor
Falk Rogner	...	Himself (as Amon Düül II)
Guenther Rupp	...	Bishop's advisor
Elga Sorbas	...	Helpless girl
John Weinzierl	...	Himself (as Amon Düül II)

Also Known As:

Die Niklashauser Fahrt (West Germany) (alternative spelling)
The Niklashausen Journey

Runtime:

90 min

Country:

West Germany

Language:

German

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Mono

Filming Locations:

Feldkirchen, Carinthia, Austria

Company:

Janus Film und Fernsehen

Soundtrack:

Untitled Jam

Fassbinderian brilliance, way ahead of its time (for him).

One of Fassbinder's first films, 'The Niklashausen Journey' might be the most explicitly political the filmmaker would ever get. Once again - as with all his earlier work that I've seen - Godard's influence is palpable, particularly the messy mythologizing he applied to revolutionaries in 'Weekend' (although from what I've read about Straub-Huillet and other first generation of filmmakers from the New German Cinema, the influences extend much farther beyond that). 'Niklashausen' is a scathing critique of both political radicals and the society that produces them. Unlike Godard, Fassbinder makes this a very specific society, a very German society. The movie draws very clear parallels between religion and revolution, questions both the means and ends of revolutionary violence, suggests similarities between this uprising and the one led by Hitler several decades earlier - and it completely dismisses the ruling class as worthless, absurd fools quick to devastation when their enemies are involved. It works on the viewer in unexpected ways, building on our empathy with the revolutionary cause, while nearly condemning the whole movement, to make us truly care about enacting change - it is not as depressingly claustrophobic as the summary would have you believe. Without the usual melodrama to carry the film along, it does feel like an emotionally distant version of Fassbinder's later films like 'In A Year of 13 Moons' or 'Querelle.' It is difficult to deny that the film is formally and structurally brilliant, however, and of immediate interest to anyone who wants to see yet another side of a genius manifesting itself for the first time, in one of his more fascinating experiments.