Lola

Lola is a singer, and a sometimes-prostitute, in the whorehouse run by Schukert, a big vulgarian who also happens to have a land deal coming up and has such a reputation that he won't be hassled by a cop when at a checkpoint. A new building commissioner is in town, Von Bohm, and he's a very pure soul, non-corruptible, sensible, a 'moralist' if ever there was one. But he's soon entranced by a 'chance' meeting with Lola (who is, actually, put on the spot to charm the straight-arrow Von Bohm), and soon he becomes enraptured with her, to his possible demise. If this premise is pretty much similar to the Blue Angel, it's intentional so much so that I would consider this a full-blown remake- Blue Angel set this time in post WW2 Germany instead of pre-War, and with some extra doses of socio-political context thrown in (and, of course for Fassbinder, some added sensuality that works magnificently as classy-raunch, if that makes sense).

Fassbinder's film Lola, one of his last and the 2nd part of a BDR trilogy he made, is sumptuous melodrama, filmed with such a vibrant and eclectic and varied sense of color with the lighting and sets and costumes- on the faces and bodies and sets- that one can just look at any scene in this and find something fantastically stylized about it. It should be a real horror-show fable, but Fassbinder is something much of a realistic-romantic, if that also makes any sense, in that he thrusts naturalistic actors alongside a few 'personalities' (one of them a great actor playing Schukert, Mario Adolf), among such vibrant sets like the inside of the nightclub and amid the turmoil of the post-war German setting where the economy is finally back in boom (if not for everyone).

Occasionally some of the musical choices- or just the abundance of them in nearly every scene- is a bit much, and I was thrown off by what seemed like maybe too much of a happy ending considering everything tragic that has preceded it (Fassbinder doesn't let his characters completely off the hook, but it feels too clean-cut as well). However Fassbinder is also working on some prime material with a real eye for the harrowing scope of a tragic romance and the means of 'fitting-in' to a urban landscape where, according to Lola, Von Brum doesn't really fit in. It's also got Barbara Sukowa as the title character, obviously in a career-high-point, and Armin Mueller-Stahl in another of a long series of really interesting roles where he can show emotions but very wisely and carefully and appears to be reserved- sometimes deceptively reserved like in Eastern Promises- and for Von Brum it's one of his best.

Anyone who loves a juicy drama of romance and building-capitalist intrigue would do well to watch this. I'm sure it'll be one of Fassbinder's best. 9.5/10