Arrow Video

Rainer Werner Fassbinder, the enfant terrible of the New German Cinema, wrote, directed, produced and starred in over 40 films in his short but prolific life, before passing away of a drug overdose in 1982 aged just 37. Rainer Werner Fassbinder vol. 1 brings together a collection of his finest works from the early years of his career in High Definition digital restorations prepared by the Rainer Werner Fassbinder Foundation.

His debut feature Love Is Colder Than Death (1969) is a playful but cynical crime picture, inspired by the nouvelle vague. Katzelmacher (1969) depicts the dynamics of a group of young layabout friends, which are radically altered by the arrival of an immigrant worker in their community. Beware of a Holy Whore (1971) pulls the curtain on the backstage dramas of the cast and crew of a film shoot as they wait in a Spanish seaside hotel for the arrival of funds to continue their production. The Merchant of Four Seasons (1971) portrays the downfall of a beleaguered fruit seller in 1950s Munich as he struggles to keep his family, body and soul together.

Originally written and produced as a stage play, The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972) focuses on the loves, losses and lamentations of the titular Petra, a successful fashion designer with two marriages behind her and an estranged daughter. The Ulli Lommel directed Tenderness of the Wolves (1973) sees Fassbinder adopting the role of producer in a bleak tale based on the German serial killer Fritz Haarmann, memorably played by Fassbinder regular Kurt Raab, who also wrote the screenplay.

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