(Rarely screened, on a double feature no less, with "Fassbinder's Women," at Anthology Film Archives NYC as part of their "Narrow Rooms" series)
The lifestyles of the Rich and Miserable! Stupid patriarchy! Stupid Stephen! Stupid men!
So, this is rare to see and find (much less in a theater screening) and possibly for good reason; aside from it being one of the handful of made for television films by Rainer Werner Fassbinder in the 1970s that was made primarily because he wanted to get something from stage to screen, so it is so completely stagebound almost by default that it is transformed into something like a dream of a theater production (a very twisted and catty dream), it's based off of a popular play and I suspect the makers of the program didn't have any rights. It is also, even among *everything* Fassbinder ever made, one of his most off-kilter films.
This isn't to say this isn't massively entertaining as far as bitchy-camp that is more often than not a legitimate dramatic spectacle. This is prime soap opera material - well to do woman discovers her man has been cheating, it blows up her entire life, and when she finds a way to bring payback onto the younger and still cheating Other lady ditz who did her wrong she takes it and makes a fruitless pursuit to just torpedo everything - and it is performance wise nothing short of incredible (only Hanna Schygulla seems missed, if this really should mark a Fassbinder-Ladies-All-Star get-together), with Margrit Christensen only at first a stand out until later usurped by the actor playing one of the truly Breakdowniest rich ex-wives on New York by way of Germany.
If it is so off kilter it's because of the theatrical devices and extremely long takes Fassbinder implements here. There's one scene in particular here, as one of the housemaid continues, and this to me is not an accident, in total robotic almost under hypnosis form to rub a plane of glass that has in front of it separate streaks of like a continuous waterfall going on in this woman's home, and as the women talk and a major revelation about what has been going on with this Crystal Allen (Barbara Sukowa in an early role, taking on a young and frustrated pack of misery with aplomb) and another man who has been stepping out on one of the ladies present, and the camera just...keeps... going.
And Fassbinder doesn't go in for close ups either, so as this massively intense series of dramatic beats unfolds, including Christensen at one point flinging herself in motions that can't help but be comical, it has this trance-like state. It is... a lot. It feels like Fassbinder is channeling a social commentary on the Uber rich, like they are all encased in this hell where a maids work will keep going despite all reason, the slivers of waterfalls that are in this house will keep on going, and the Melodrama that has reached operatic heights about the total dearth of a woman's agency in marriage in the 20th century (Reno be damned), is remarkable as it is frustrating. Just, like, go in for one tighter shot, Rainer!
I should note in full disclosure I havent seen the other adaptations of the play to screen (even in a lighter Hollywoodized version it is easy to see Joan Crawford, star of the 38 film, eating a few of these roles like, well, me at Thanksgiving buffet next week), so I am going on what is here before me.
Suffice it to say, coming to this after swimming through dozens of other films by this artist, Women in New York feels like an experiment on the filmmaker's part to merge his Theater roots with his Petra von Kant immersive Caught-in-a-Throrbush-of-Despair emotional landscape with some knowing and quite funny camp theatrics, not to mention some Brechtian distancing with that Peer Raaben score that is so mournful and bizarre it distracts.
While I don't think it is as successful as Von Kant and I flat out didn't care for the young actor playing Mary's androgynous daughter, you do get caught in the spell that is cast. The ending, scored to the Blue Danube Waltz, ties everything together perfectly though.
