Gods of the Plague
Director: Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Year Released: 1970
Rating: 2.5
Typical Fassbinder early work (that is, if anything by R.W. can be considered 'typical'): disenfranchised young-types eating, smoking, buying/selling pornography, trying not to get arrested until 'something' happens and people die. The laissez-faire treatment of the characters and disjointed homage to American crime movies are both disarming to the viewer - and the slapped-together feel is similar to Godard - but I think giving this a positive rating would somehow be akin to 'approving' the director's unflinching pessimism (the proverbial glass isn't just half empty, it's been smashed on the floor and embedded in people's dirty boots). I've seen a lot of films by a lot of filmmakers, and of all of them, Fassbinder's work has to be some of the strangest and most challenging to categorize and mentally sort out.
