Mother Küsters Goes to Heaven (Mutter Küsters’ Fahrt zum Himmel)
Directed by Ranier Werner Fassbinder
Written by Ranier Werner Fassbinder and Kurt Raab from a story by Heinrich Zille
1975/West Germany
IMDb page
First viewing/Criterion Channel
Emma Küsters: Everybody’s out for something. Once you realize that, everything is simple.
I loved this dark, savage, political film.
The setting is contemporary Frankfurt, Germany. Emma Küsters (Brigitte Mira) is a humble working class housewife who makes ends meet by putting together electronic gizmos at home. Her weak son and horrible pregnant daughter-in-law Helene (Irm Herrmann) share the apartment. One day as Emma is making dinner, a knock on the door comes to inform her that her husband Herrmann killed the foreman at the factory where he worked and then himself. This is not the quiet, decent man she knew.
Almost immediately, the apartment is filled with reporters and photographers who want to get the scoop on the sensational story. Emma calls her daughter Corinna (Ingrid Caven) in Munich with the news and asks her to come home. She is not too keen on this until she hears about the reporters. The bewildered Emma and her live-in kids are manipulated into making statements that will be taken out of context.
The most persistent of the reporters is Niemeyer (Gottfried John) who calls the next day for an exclusive interview. He persuades Emma that he is on her side and will get her story out.
He offers to take Emma to pick up her daughter Corinna, a “singer”, who uses her body and general decadence to cover up her lack of talent. She exploits Herrmann’s funeral by carefully posing herself for pictures as the grieving daughter. Helene and Emma’s son go on a planned holiday instead of attending. They move out soon after returning. Corinna moves in with Niemeyer, whose article portrays Herrmann as a monster. Corinna also gets a singing job in a dive that uses her father’s notoriety to draw a crowd.
Next, Karl Thälmann (Karl-Heinz Böhm) and his wife Marianne (Margit Carstensen) befriend Emma. Both are devout Communists and promise to use the paper Karl writes for to clear Herrmann’s name. The couple see the husband’s actions as a response to capitalist oppression. After Emma is deserted by her children, she turns to them for comfort and eventually joins the German Communist Party. She is ultimately disappointed by the failure of the Party to take action or even publish a story.
Then she is befriended by an anarchists who suggest occupying Niemeyer’s newspaper’s office and demanding a retraction of the article. I will stop here. Fassbinder came up with two alternate endings.
Fassbinder once again produces a sordid and beautiful film. He skewers just about every aspect of West German life and politics. The acting and production are splendid. If you are interested in having your faith in humanity restored, give this a miss. If you are a Fassbinder fan like me, I highly recommend it.
No trailer so here is a summary of the 44 projects Fassbinder completed between 1966 and his death in 1982
