10 March 2010
Berlin Alexanderplatz: The Punishment Begins [Die Strafe beginnt] (1980)
The story of Franz Biberkof, Berlin Alexanderplatz is a fifteen hour film by Rainer Werner Fassbinder based on the novel by Alfred Döblin. I haven’t seen all of it yet, but I hope writing about each section will not only give me the momentum to finish it, but it’ll give some perspective to what I write after having seen it all. To be fair, it was done for television, and comprises 14 episodes, so it’s not like these entries won’t have any structure.
Franz Biberkof has just been released from prison, after serving four years for killing his girlfriend. The first chapter of his story, as its title suggests, catalogues Biberkof’s readjustment to a society to which he’s afraid to reintegrate. It launches into a relatively difficult scene with a Jewish man telling a parable which we take to more or less summarize the next fourteen hours we’ll be watching. This, of course, would be a mistake, as the film points out the second the man’s brother-in-law comes in during one of the most portentous thunderstorms ever captured in film (maybe that should be capital). So he attends to the red light district for a whore, to prove his manhood this side of jail. It doesn’t work of course, and he’s ridiculed. This scene is particularly effective with its carnival-loop of player-piano music streaming in from the bar below.
Nevertheless, Franz is a sweet man, hopeful for the future and generous, but emotional. He returns to his apartment and the murder scene of Ida, the aforementioned girlfriend. It seems not much has changed in his absence, and the landlord welcomes him home with equal parts motherhood, worry and suspicion. Franz attempts to make peace with Ida’s sister by getting her flowers and nearly raping her. There are plenty of hints that the sister and Franz carried on prior to Ida’s death, but it seems more that Franz is invested in re-establishing his manhood with something that is familiar.
Ultimately, Franz runs into an old friend whom he goes drinking with, where he meets a young, impressionable Polish woman who moves in with him, and is instructed by the Berlin police department that as a convict he is not allowed to live in many neighborhoods of Berlin as a convicted murderer. The scene where Biberkof reads off the districts is the most effective and moving scene of the first chapter, as you can see not only the effect on Franz, but on the polish woman and his friend as well. Enrolling with a charter called Prisoner’s Aid allows Biberkof to stay in Berlin, provided he do work for them and check in once a month.
It must be said that the story of Biberkof resembles in more ways than one that of McTeague by Frank Norris. Considered the first “Gothic” American novel, both Alexanderplatz were constructed into monumental films of gargantuan length (McTeague as Greed by Erich von Stroheim). Both are about simpletons, big hearted men found to be in circumstances above their heads. I’m sure Biberkof’s struggle lands him in a metaphorical desert, with something a lot more guilt-inducing than a briefcase of money handcuffed to his wrist. Leave it to the Germans to obfuscate something so pure as a golden tooth outside your shop.
Use this link to find all posts about Berlin Alexanderplatz as they become available.