"Liebe ist kälter als der Tod" is a West German movie from 1969 and writer and director Rainer Werner Fassbinder was in his early 20s still when he shot this movie. It is from extremely early in his career and, just like "Katzelmacher", in black-and-white, a trademark of his early films. And another trademark is that the director appears also as an actor in there, something not too common anymore when Fassbinder moved on, or at least not in the sense that he played crucial characters as he does here. And also just like "Katzelmacher", this film here is fairly short, only 90 minutes and Fassbinder has many longer films in his body of work. The title translated means "Love is Colder than death", which is admittedly a bit pretentious. It is about a triangle relationship. And struggles arise quickly as the two men are also very close friends and their relationship is really much more in the focus than the relationship with the female, played by Hanna Schygulla who worked a lot with Fassbinder. There are other cast members here who also appeared in more Fassbinder films. Fassbinder's films are always more about attraction and about arranging yourself with your feelings, not really about love and this description also fits nicely in here. Because of the small core cast, it is probably also a good choice to play in a theater group or so. Nonetheless, despite the film's success with awards bodies too I must say that I prefer some of Fassbinder's later works over this one here. But this is entirely subjective of course. It looks to me as if he is still looking for his style and needs refinement. He found it. But not yet in this one. Not recommended.
