Mother Küsters Goes to Heaven

Good Fassbinder, if a little lethargic. Brigitte Mira, who just passed away earlier this month, plays a housewife who has long settled in her uneventful life. One day, however, her husband commits murder-suicide at the factory in which he works. Suddenly she has to deal with the media, as well as her uncaring family. She can't really figure out why her husband did what he did. Luckily, some local communists show up to help her figure it out. Soon she's a pawn in their politics. And, when they don't satisfy her need for an explanation, a group of anarchists steps in to use her for their own political purposes. The film ends twice – once we read Fassbinder's original scripted ending, then we see the ending he did use. Both work, though I think the first, unfilmed one is a lot more Fassbinder-esque. Mira is wonderful, as usual; some of the family material is too close to Fear Eats the Soul, and is rendered somewhat ineffective because of that.