Mother Küsters Goes to Heaven (1975) review

After her husband kills his boss' son and then himself, a widow is courted by the media, then the Communists and finally the anarchists, all in a bid for attention. Leonard Maltin claims that the movie is redeemed by sympathy for Küsters, but I didn't find her to be a pitiable figure at all: she's naive and appears perpetually confused and just a puppet for others to manipulate. The ending is weird even for Fassbinder, with two completely different outcomes: the first has Küsters and the anarchists in a violent takeover of a publishing house (which ends fatally), the second has Küsters and the anarchists in a 'peaceful' takeover, which fails to work. Leave it to Rainer to feel that violence is the only way to get things done.