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Speakers): André Fischer

Loosely based on Cornell Woolrich’s novel “For the rest of her life” and produced for German television Fassbinder’s film tells the story of the middle-aged librarian Martha (Margit Carstensen) who, after the death of her dominating father, marries the engineer Helmut (Karlheinz Böhm). Her new husband turns out to be a sadist who torments the naïve Martha and isolates her from the rest of the world. The film impresses with a rich and beautiful cinematography by Michael Ballhaus, whose use of space reflects Martha’s and Helmut’s tense psychological relation, and features a legendary 360-degree tracking shot. Shifting between horror and satire Fassbinder pushes his sadomasochistic vision of marriage to the limit in this generally underrated gem.