Katzelmacher (1969)

The film is set in Munich in the present day at the time it was made. A group of young adults hang around their suburban neighborhood—in the streets, in apartments, and at the local pub. Each member of the group has some kind of relationship with the others. At first, Marie is going out with Erich, Paul with Helga, and Peter with Elisabeth. Then there is Rosy, who sleeps with Franz for 20 marks and sometimes with Peter as well, so she can finance her dream of becoming an actress; Gunda, who is teased because she can’t “get herself a man,” but tells the others that hers is “away on a job”; and Klaus, who is gay, has Paul over from time to time, and is having an affair with him. The members of this loose-knit group meet up—sometimes all together, sometimes in smaller combinations. They drink together, bore one another, and become verbally and physically aggressive. The women try to make one another believe that they are in happy relationships, that they “feel something” (Marie). Although they are often treated brutally, they remain attached to their boyfriends. The men, meanwhile, talk about crooked schemes that could finally make them rich, while their girlfriends talk about getting married. Overall, there is a certain order of subtle and overt violence. Fassbinder lays the facades bare: what is said and what is seen collide mercilessly, and the gulf between them cannot be bridged. When Jorgos, a Greek guest worker, appears and rents a room from Elisabeth—at first, he has to share it with Peter—hostility, xenophobia, and envy emerge among the group’s male members. The foreigner becomes a general screen for projecting desire, feelings of inferiority, boredom, aggression, machismo, and so on. Gunda, whom everyone rejects, including Jorgos, also spreads the rumor that he raped her. Erich in particular feels his honor has been insulted when Marie shows open interest in Jorgos. Elisabeth, meanwhile, is subjected to rumors alleging that she is having an affair with her Greek subtenant. He is insulted as a “Communist” and a “Greek dog.” The prejudice culminates when Erich, Peter, and Franz beat up the Greek, Jorgos, in the middle of the street. The final scene shows Marie and Helga. Marie gushes that Jorgos wants to take her with him to Greece, even though his wife lives there, because in Greece “[…] everything is different.” The ending remains open.