Le soldat américain

This is a very funny attempt by the director to deal with the "klischee"( german spelling) of the american man, or at least how the proletarian german man is looking across the atlantic. All americans are good in bed? goodlooking? violent and yet cool? Why is there a need to put ketchup on a shot person's shirt? Would you really believe then that somebody was actually killed? I agree with other viewers that this not a movie that could be considered enjoyable at all times, but it beats movies like "the patriot" or "frida" any time, because it doesn't take itself serious. And that in itself is exactly the director's criticism of american culture ( what an abuse of the word culture!) and their consistant effort to tell you everything is allright and we are the good guys. Here, have another Diet coke, or would you like a Big Mac with your Whitney Houston?

American SOLDIER is certainly not among Fassbinder's greatest works. Fassbinder's oeuvre demands that his actors 'pose' rather than 'act'. Ordinarily, a successful dramatic performance allows the viewer to forget that an actor is 'pretending', but that one is witnessing a real depiction of emotions and reactions. However, Fassbinder strives for the converse of this process. He seems to aim for an almost militant lack of affectation, and his actors strike stylized poses which only represent authentic emotions. It's almost like German Kabuki Theater. It would seem that this form of acting technique would lend itself very well to the genre of Gangster Noir, but this film definitely missed the mark. The tale of three rogue police detectives who employ the skills of a heartless American Vietnam veteran is bogged down in an untidy avalanche of wacky details. Odd monologues, pointless car trips, enigmatic phone calls, and arguably the weirdest final scene ever brought to film, do not advance the storyline, but only confuse and perplex the viewer. Fassbinder's more successful films created surreal hyper-realities, but American SOLDIER only conveyed a feeling of disconnected opaqueness. Only for Die Hard Fassbinder Fans.

"Der Amerikanische Soldat" (1970) is R.W. Fassbinder's least understood movie. Most people think - and this conviction can be found also in textbooks about Fassbinders as well as in reference works of film - that he just wanted to create a German Film Noir as a kind of reverence for his love for the respective American movies of the 50ies. Nothing can be less adequate! The American Soldier, asked by a prostitute, if he is a real Yank, answers: "First, there was Germany ... . Once there was a little boy ... He flew over the Pond ... . Scheisse!". I think the main problem with the story is that Fassbinder purposely does not portray The American Soldier as an American who has been called by the German police to abolish a bunch of criminals. Richard Murphy alias Richard Von Rezzori is a German. When Franz Walsch alias Fassbinder asks him during their car trip: "And how was it in Vietnam?" - Richard's astonishing answer is: "Loud". In this little dialog, there is all you need to understand this outstanding movie. Another crucial scene is when Richard visits his paternal house. As one sees, not only he, but also his mother and his brother are drinkers. When he rings the bell, he tries to kiss his mother, but she disgustedly turns away her head. His brother smashes a wine-glass in his hand until he bleeds. After Richard has left, he starts to cry and says: "Mama, I still love him!". So, who is the American Soldier? A German noble-man who became an American citizen in order to be legitimated to clean-up what had destroyed his soul in Germany? Vietnam as a legitimation to get rid of the burdens of his soul? But about such things one does not speak, and so it was just "loud" down there. But is there not an additional point of criticism in Fassbinder's movie? Fact is: It is the German police (represented by three moronic officers and an antique president) who hire the American Soldier in order to kill all those against which the police has too little evidence in order to arrest them. But in the end, the killer also gets killed, because otherwise the incapability of the police would become public! Can one not see in this other aspect of the story also the function of the real Americans who "liberated" Germany after World War II. and, at the same time, have been accused of intrusion and interference for what they have done? So, Fassbinders's movie is far from being mono-linear. What he copied is a little bit the Ambiente of some early gangster movies, but even the structural main feature, the play with light and shadow and the dark screens which have been so typical for Films Noirs, are completely lacking in "The American Soldier". One has rather the impression, that three clowns of police-men just have watched a bit too many gangster movies, that is all. With that, it goes together that the most unimportant persons in the movie carry the names of famous real persons, a stylistic effect that Fassbinder loved: So, the porter of the shabby hotel is "Murnau", the little girl-friend of one of the police-rowdies is "Rosa Von Praunheim". The porn-sales-girl is Magdalena "Fuller". Last but not least: Richard Von Rezzori bears the name of the German writer Gregor Von Rezzori whose wife Hanna Axmann-Rezzori was one of Fassbinder's early Maecenas and acted in "Warum Läuft Herr R. Amok" and "Rio Das Mortes". The score of this movie, by Fassbinder and Peer Raben, probably belongs to the best film music of all times.

The American Soldier has a story, maybe even a plot, but that's not why Rainer Werner Fassbinder made this movie, I believe. It's more about an attack or subversion on the style of a movie, in this case the film-noir. The black and white makes the comparison a little obvious, but it's also in the attitudes of the characters, the costumes and clothing that distinguishes a character like Ricky. But it also owes as much to New-Wave tactics like Godard and Melville (Le Samourai and Alphaville come immediately to mind), and to Fassbinder's own sense of alienation with the world as well as in his own films. It's sometimes hard to watch, since his character carry the same weight of angst and dread that they barely really show to one another, but it's still an intriguing trip.

The story that is there actually reveals more about a German viewpoint than that of it being American, though I'm sure its protagonist and its background is significant just for this reason. It's about a soldier back from Vietnam who is recruited by the government, who act much in the way of a discreet crime organization, to carry out killings of people who may (or may not?) be nefarious characters, or just people whom Ricky doesn't know why he's killing. The implication is somewhat more satirical than action-movie based (though I'm reminded, sadly, of Wolverine earlier this year and movies like it that don't get the message), that a killer keeps on killing if without the right sense of moral well-being or even self-worth.

Fassbinder amps up some clichés for the film-noir aesthetic by making it a pulpy-crime story, where a prostitute falls in love with Ricky even as she shouldn't or might just get in the way. He also casts his parts very well, especially with Karl Scheydt as Ricky (makes Glenn Ford look like a wimp) and Elga Sorbas as Rosa, the attractive but uncertain prostitute who falls for Ricky (there's an engrossing scene where he calls up to ask for a girl to his apartment room, she comes and undresses, and then the two just lay in bed while a maid is in the room telling a somber story about a romance gone bad). All of the cinematography is at least interesting, and at best represents a maturity in film-making for Fassbinder after his first couple of films (Love is Colder Than Death, Katzelmacher) that were just a series of static shots.

Some have brought up criticisms of its tedious nature, or that it's just boring. It's hard to argue it since it's based on taste; the same scene that could make on bored (and, frankly, it's not a good movie to watch when tired at two in the morning) could also make a Jim Jarmusch fan gripped to the chair one's sitting at. Characters in The American Soldier don't move too realistically - it's more like in Fassbinder's own The Merchant of Four Seasons; people move and talk and look like they've come out of a shell-shock, or may still be in one. Even the cop characters, or Ricky's mom and brother, are in a slight daze as they speak, and this is deliberate. It ends up making for a more intellectually satisfying experience than an emotional one; I wasn't so much moved by the ending, where we see a character's death (one usually typical in a film-noir of the 1940s in America, as in bad-guy-gets-his by the end) in the context of a poetic mourning, but it did fascinate me.

It's sometimes tough going, and its rewards are for a real geek for black and white New-Wave inspired crime films that have such gimmicks as a rock song that repeats in lieu of a usual orchestral sound, and its not for someone looking for fast action and conventional thrills. It is, in its dimensions, arty, and fine with it.

I am not really too sure what the love affection people have for Fassbinder is. He made some wildly uneven movies, Mind you, I've been wrong before on directors (especially on Bergman) so I'll keep this opinion til proved otherwise. 'The American Soldier" is Fassbiner's attempt at a Film Noir. He doesn't succeed. OK, this film is totally miscast. The 'Gangsters' don't begin to look like gangsters. They look like Germans wearing funny costumes! The story, about a killer who is assigned a series of killings by some corrupt police officers is hardly suspenseful and yes, drags for the 70 (!!) minute screening time. And finally the women are, well, German.

Oh dear, am I going to get flak for this one.