"Mama, Ich bin in Deutschland!" - Der Amerikanische Soldat (1970)

I'm starting to realize the stylish diversity of Fassbinder's films but all the more does his fondness for kitch and melodramatic scenes and twists dawn on me. A quote on the folder of Der Amerikanische Soldat gives a hint of what the film is about: "Ich zeige, dass die staatliche Gewalt letzlich über Gangster-Gewalt siegt, und zwar im Princip mit den gleich Methoden."

** spoiler alert **

Ricky returns from the US & from the Vietnam war. Gradually, it is evident that he is a contract killer. He is hired by a bunch of cops to kill a few people. The police officers seek revenge. For Ricky, this is just a mission, that's what he is told to do. As I watched the film, I was confused as to the identity of many of the characters. Are these types criminals? Or are they police officers? The confusion seem intentional. Fassbinder, as the quote makes us understand, wants to question the right and legitimacy of violence exerted by the state. However interesting this theme is, I felt that the film dealt with it in a less than original way. This is not a big complaint. Stylistically, the film is a working whole but thematically, it is somewhat of a mess, maybe intentionally so.

Much of Der Amerikanische Soldat follows a restrained but tongue-in-cheek film noir aesthetics. It's filmed in black-and-white, with lots of flickering lights and some sudden camera pannings zooming in a face. The lines are short and understated, the effect is comical. Ricky visists his mother and his brother still living with Mutti. A huge pinball machine dominates the frame. "Was machst du in Deutschland?" "Geshäfte, Mama." The brother's clearly in love with Ricky. Ricky & mum? Don't even ask. (Deleuze: "an uncle in america, a brother who went bad, an aunt who took off with a military man..."; on the unstable triangle & leaking familial bonds spreading out in all directions. - "Is Fassbinder's film about Oedipus....?" Eh.) In another scene, we see a love-strucken couple walk up to an apartment. Ricky sits stiffly in a chair, whisky bottle in hand (he drinks whisky throughout the film). Firstly, the cuddling couple does not see him. Ricky shoots them and even as he is dying, the drunk man will not stop laughing. As they drop to the floor, Ricky takes another chug of whisky. Ricky, who is called "Killer", is a character that has just walked out from a pulp fiction story, outfit, talking style and all. He's an expressionless zombie, seemingly going about his business as if this would be the most natural thing in the world, killing a few people in between ordering beef with ketchup & engaging in sex with prostitutes. - Tarantino could have been the director of this film but creepiness of it all is more affiliated with Blue Velvet.

In another scene, there's a closu-up of a woman singing a cheesy song in a somewhat shaky voice. She holds a cigarette with a gigantic holder. Dim lights. The woman has an accent. Ricky arrives at the joint, "Lola Montez". He gets the advice he needs. The place is positively cavernous. "Ich brauche auskünfte." He talks to another woman. He knows her. He asks her: "Was machst du?" "Ich bin verheiratet, mit ihn." She points at a guy that looks like a fish. Ricky is off to meet a schwule gypsy called Tony who reads hands & who knows certain people.

The ending scene is, as always in Fassbinder's film, striking. Ricky opens a deposit safe containing a revolver. Suddenly, his employers arrive & shoot him down. His brother & mother show up (!). The two brothers, one of them dead or half-dead, roll around on the ground, wrestling, hugging, while the mother stands statue-like, dressed in black, in the distance, looking. At least some of this was displayed in slow motion, with a static camera, to the most tacky & strange music ever made, written by Fassbinder himself. "So much tenderness is in my head, so much loneliness is in my bed..." When you think the scene is over, it just continues in the same vein: the brothers roll around, the mother is looking. Ironically - and this might be important for the point of the film - in Ricky's & the brother's "death hug" Ricky looks more alive than ever elsewhere in the film.

There's a lot of fun stuff to marvel at. One of them is the 'reference' to a Fassbinder film later to be done - Angst essen Seele auf - in one of the lines by a maid who recites a story on the bedside while Ricky has sex with another woman. Strange? Very.

Perfectly enjoyable to watch, stylistically brilliant - but the content was not so thrilling this time around. A wonderfully sloppy movie. Accusing it for not being "believable" is, of course, nonsense.

I put on The Blue nile's wonderful 80's noir-ish Hats album & call it a night.

PS: One of the actors is called Gustl Datz. Do you folks think it's his real name?