Why Does Herr R. Run Amok?
by Michael Fengler, Rainer Werner Fassbinder
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Franz Maron, Harry Baer, Kurt Raab, Lilith Ungerer, Lilo PempeitDirector: Michael Fengler, Rainer Werner Fassbinder
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: German (Original Language), Unknown; English (Subtitled)
Format: Color, DVD-Video, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 88 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-05-30
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Fantoma
Movie Reviews of Why Does Herr R. Run Amok?
Movie Review: One of Fassbinder's best
Summary: 4 Stars
Very deliberately paced and shot in a detached, voyeuristic manner, "Herr R" documents a man's slow and subtle meltdown from his meaningless, banal, unsatisfying environment, ending in a tragic act of violence. The story itself is a familiar one, but the presentation is what really sells it. There is nothing obvious about Raab's transformation -- you really have to pay attention, look for the subtle tics here and there that tell you you're watching a man slowly unravel. And then it's just a waiting game -- what's he gonna do, and when's it gonna happen? And at the very moment you, the viewer, cannot take it anymore (not unlike our beloved anti-hero), BOOM. It happens.
The film is not particularly easy to sit through, if only because we are subjected to the same banalities that are eating away at our protagonist. In fact, these boring, trivial glimpses of everyday drudgery comprise the majority of the film. This was clearly what Fassbinder intended, and when you see that final scene and the robotic, emotionless way Herr Raab goes about it, you know there is no other way the story could have been told. ****
Summary of Why Does Herr R. Run Amok?
Rainer Werner Fassbinder turned to color for his fourth film, a bleak portrait of middle-class banality. Kurt Raab, the plump, baby-faced art director usually cast as the director's most pathetic characters, stars as Herr R., a seemingly successful middle-class professional and happily married family man who stumbles through life like a grinning zombie. As one might guess from the title, Herr R. (an appropriately vague, undistinguished character that Fassbinder leaves unnamed to better stand in for a German everyman) is about to go over the edge, and the film shows us why in relentless, numbing detail. At work he's an insignificant figure of ridicule; at home he escapes into endless hours of TV when not killing time with empty small talk (largely improvised by the cast), and he soon slips into a listless depression compounded by constant headaches. Fassbinder and codirector Michael Fengler don't make the experience easy for us. The film is as purposely banal as the chatty droning of the soundtrack, shot in a hypernaturalistic approach with a palette of muddy, dull colors that give the picture the quality of a faded Polaroid. There's a genius to the gesture, and the film marches inexorably to a harrowing climax, but it's not for all tastes. Even Fassbinder fans admit that this is a tough film to get through. --Sean AxmakerArt House & International DVD Video
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