rules of the game
by
Douglas Messerli
Peter
Marthesheimer, Pea Frohlich, and Rainer Werner Fassbinder (screenplay), Rainer
Werner Fassbinder (director) Lola /
1981
The whorehouse, where a great deal of the
film’s events take place, has the feel almost of prewar Berlin, with sex
(heterosexual and homosexual, as well as mixed groupings) taking place in the
main room as well in bedrooms throughout the house. Perhaps taking a cue from
theatrical productions such as Cabaret,
Fassbinder’s director of photography, Xaver Schwarzenberger, has cast much of
the film in garish candy-like colors: reds, yellows, lavenders, greens and
blues.
It’s no wonder she’s outraged by the
possessive jealousy of both her lovers, Schuckert—whom, as Vincent Canby
quipped in his original review, “she calls a pig and frequently means it”—and
the drum-playing government employee Esslin (Matthias Fuchs). Upon hearing
about the new man in town, Housing Inspector Von Bohm (Armin Mueller-Stahl)—a principled
fool a like like Gogol’s Government Inspector, who descends upon the small
community as a man torn between high ideals and his humanist good intentions—Lola
becomes intrigued. His job, after all, is to help bring the new German economic
miracle to such outlying communities filled with just such crafty foxes, and
she senses, surely, that this is the time get in on the rewards.
The audience also cannot help but to root
for this brazen enchantress, and is soon rewarded by the hussy’s attempt to
lure the slightly prissy town official by pretending to study up in the town
library on Ming vases, one of which Von Bohm features in his house.
Within the space of a few frames, the
city officials get their first face-to-face meeting with the new man, while
Lola meets him for a country stroll, far away from the spying eyes of others. So
taken is Von Bohm with the beauty that he orders up a ridiculous English hiking
suit which even Lola dares to describe as unnatural given his usual
conservative attire.
Lola successfully seduces Von Bohm, in
part, by singing a gentle round with him in a country chapel, dressed in a
handsome white dress with small black dots—a gown that in the year before these events are said to have
happened, 1955, might have been worn by the fashion savvy Lisa of Hitchcock’s Rear Window. Did I mention that Sukowa
not only can sing but is a real beauty?
In revenge, Von Bohm searches all city
records in which Schuckert and the mayor have been involved, uncovering, as we
might expect, a long history of kickbacks, illegal transfers, and other evil
doings. When he announces that he intends to postpone all new building, city
leaders secretly meet to determine their tactics. Helped by the idealist
Esslin, Von Bohm builds a case against them which he attempts to leak—without
success—to a local reporter. Even Esslin realizes that, in the morass of such corruption,
Von Bohm cannot win, playing as he is without any rules.
As ever, Schuckert, who, more than anyone
knows “the rules of the game,” immediately senses how to solve the dilemma,
offering up the services of Lola to Von Bohm, and, accordingly, abandoning his
claims to her.
As usual, he gets his way: Von Bohm
marries Lola, who suddenly links the well-meaning official with the town’s
ruling class (Lola has borne a child with Schuckert), while offering Lola the
opportunity to join their ranks. The film ends with Lola being welcomed into
the arms of Schuckert’s and the mayor’s nasty wives, after which she rushes off
for one last fling with the town’s biggest economic wunderkind, a man who knows
how to control both his compatriot’s pocketbooks and hearts.
Los Angeles,
September 15, 2015
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