Rainer Werner Fassbinder's most profitable film, "The Marriage of Maria Braun" tells the tale of an upwardly mobile, independent Maria Braun (Hanna Schygulla), a woman who uses a combination of business smarts, tenacity and promiscuity to lift herself out of desperation. Fassbinder was drawn to female characters, and often wrote them well. Here he observes as Braun weasels her way back and forth, buying low cut dresses to impress Americans, learning English, framing her husband and killing men to ensure her future. "It's a bad time for feelings," she says, before worming her way into a German mega-corporation which does big business overseas. From here she turns her back on all outsiders (primarily the United States, which forced debts upon and dismantled industries across post war Germany) and tactically sleeps with her new boss. We then watch as she becomes increasingly wealthy, whilst all around the less fortunate remain burdened with post-war, national guilt. But guilt is precisely what Maria does not allow herself; she crushes all in her path. "I'm a master of deceit," she says, "a capitalist tool by day, by night an agent of the proletarian masses. I am the Mata Hari of the economic miracle." Quickly it becomes apparent that Maria represents West Germany's own rise out of World War 2's rubble, a nation casting off the chains of an insincere American Occupation and brushing off the ashes of defeat. Braun's not just an opportunist, but delights in saying what everyone wants to hear. She makes promises to every class and every country, but only to curry favour and pursue her own wants. It's a kitchen gas explosion which kills her - and symbolic ends an unholy marriage between east and west - distributing her body in all directions, an event which coincides with Germany's victory in a world-championship soccer match. Germany has been reborn, its socioeconomic progress cannot be contained. It is hungry (we hear Germany literally beating Hungary on a radio football match) and ready to explode onto the world stage.Contrasted with Wirtschaftswunder, Germany's economic miracle or post-war rise, is a rise in what Fassbinder saw as "everyday", "benign", "soft" fascism. Germany becomes a giant, but the power plays which got her there are precisely those which continue to influence, scar and weight heavy on her own inhabitants. "Is this worth it?" Fassbinder asks. His next film was "The Third Generation", a black comedy about revolutionaries or "terrorists". It plays like the spiritual sequel to "The Marriage of Maria Braun".8/10 - Worth one viewing.

Sporadically this does demonstrate masterful dialog and especially finely crafted direction from the distinguished German filmmaker, but summing it's entirety as a masterpiece feels way overpraised. There seems to be almost as much dead weight being carried around in The Marriage of Maria Braun as there is subtle grace.Thankfully to aid Fassbinder's articulate work is lead (and apparent muse) Hanna Schygulla. Her transformation, however underhanded in pace, is entertaining to behold and probably one of the stronger female performances of the time. She exudes a sensuality better suited for long pauses then line recitals, but overall does an admirable job through and through.Purists may revel in it's technical pronunciations and metaphoric finesse, but a certain emotional detachment lingers the entire time- contrary to what the script would imply. Don't let the typical European surprise shock ending and over-theorized allegorical conjecture fool you into calling this a masterpiece, it is still just a reasonably well made journey into the female psyche of post-war Germany.

This first part of the BRD Trilogy has more passion and plot density than Lola, but less of the magic of Veronica Voss. The political musings have point to them: we see the shortages after the war, how the blackmarketers were able to control so much of the day-to-day life (delicious moment when Fassbinder, playing a grifter, tries to sell a complete set of Kleist to Schygulla, who remarks that burning books don't provide much warmth: she really wants firewood).There's some clumsiness in the first hour. The scene in Maria's room with the black soldier, interrupted by Hermann's appearance should go quicker. The train scene when Maria meets Karl Oswald falls flat when she insults the GI--I cringed, it was so bad. But as the story develops and the years go by, I was drawn more and more into this glossy, cold world.

This movie was, as Homer Simpson would have put it, "more boring than church." Maybe I don't understand it well enough, and I thought it started out pretty well, but after (START OF SPOILER) Hermann Braun is sent to jail and Maria starts working/sleeping with her boss it just started to drag, and I struggled to keep awake. Again, maybe it symbolizes something, but the explosion at the end seemed very forced and out of place. (END OF SPOILER). In the end, I fail to see why others think it's so great, as I found it extremely boring. By the way, I did not watch this movie by my own free will, as I was required to see it for a Film class.