Lili Marleen (1981)

User Rating:

7.2/10   

Director:

Rainer Werner Fassbinder

Writers:

Lale Andersen (novel)
Rainer Werner Fassbinder (additional dialogue)

Release Date:

14 January 1981 (West Germany)

Genre:

Drama | Music | Romance | War

Plot:

In Switzerland German singer 'Willie' falls in love with Jewish composer 'Robert' who offers resistance to the Nazis by helping refugees...

Plot Keywords:

Nazi | Song | Radio | Soldier | Germany

Cast

Hanna Schygulla	...	Willie
Giancarlo Giannini	...	Robert
Mel Ferrer	...	David Mendelsson
Karl-Heinz von Hassel	...	Henkel (as Karl Heinz von Hassel)
Erik Schumann	...	von Strehlow
Hark Bohm	...	Taschner
Gottfried John	...	Aaron
Karin Baal	...	Anna Lederer
Christine Kaufmann	...	Miriam
Udo Kier	...	Drewitz
Roger Fritz	...	Kauffmann
Rainer Will	...	Bernt
Raúl Gimenez	...	Blonsky (as Raul Giminez)
Adrian Hoven	...	Ginsberg
Willy Harlander	...	Prosel

Runtime:

120 min | Brazil:111 min

Country:

West Germany

Language:

English | German

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Iceland:16 | Netherlands:12 | Australia:M | Finland:K-16 | Singapore:R(A) | Sweden:15 | UK:15 | USA:R | West Germany:12

Filming Locations:

Bavaria Filmstudios, Geiselgasteig, Grünwald, Bavaria, Germany

Company:

Bayerischer Rundfunk (BR)

Trivia:

The character of Willi is loosely based on the German singer Lale Andersen who was the real Lili Marleen.

Goofs:

Factual errors: After having tried to commit suicide, Willi is seen performing "Lili Marleen" in the Berlin Sportpalast as part of a deal with the Nazis, dazzlingly dressed up in front of thousands, and the event is transmitted live. Then suddenly all is held up by the announcement that all German forces have surrendered (VE Day, May 8, 1945). Of course, in the final months of the regime no-one would bother about arranging a sumptuous live transmission of music; by this time, Berlin was a heap of rubble.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Die Nacht der Regisseure (1995)

Story of a spell

Story of a song. And what song! In fact, the creation of Hans Leip and Norbert Schultze is the only character, a spell who creates existences, loves, tragedies with a sarcastic indifference. It is an obsessive music, soul of a ambiguous time of dreams and ideas intoxication, with old words and cruels ambitions.

Certainly, it is a Fassbinder's lesson about values and lies, about rules of war and feelings, about small victims and sacrifice.

Hanna Schygulla is gorgeous in a character's skin different of Lale Anderson or Marlene Dietrich but with the same art to describe the atmosphere of extincted space. In some moments I saw in parts of film elements of "Cabaret" Nazi song or "Satyricon" dances. It is normal: interpretation of song is not only piece of a show but rule of life. "Lili Marleen" is not the old "Das Lied eines Jungen Soldaten auf der Wacht" but hard of an universe, hypocrite, coward, frail.

The final meeting between Willie and Robert is only seal of ordinary tragedy. To late, to far.