Chinese Roulette
Director: Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Year Released: 1976
Rating: 1.5
This vapid Fassbinder effort - made during one of the director's worst periods (before his resurgence with In the Year with 13 Moons) - is about a little crippled girl's quest for revenge against her parents who are cheating on each other. Most of the action is confined to one room - I know Fassbinder was involved in the theater, so it wouldn't surprise me to discover this was borne from a play he wrote. The "thesis" - about children finding ways to get even with their parents for being unloved - has merit, but the title 'guessing game' (invented by the director) doesn't make a lot of sense ... though, like its Russian counterpart, it does end in gunfire.
