26 May 2010

#69 of 2010: Veronika Voss



the story itself and the exceptional acting certainly deserve praise, but the most striking thing about this film is how poignantly it reverses the light=good/dark=bad convention. though Fassbinder chose to shoot "Veronika Voss" in black and white and the story is built largely on the darker, more desperate and disturbing facets of humanity, i don't think it can be considered "neo-noir" for the simple fact that so much of the film is blindingly white- which in this case represents lack, unease (even torture), corrupt power, and decay. like Rembrandt's "hundred gilder print" depicting Christ with the greatest dimensionality possible for the medium (while the "bad guys" are punished by being made lightest, their forms constructed from the fewest and thinnest lines, barely worked on by the artist or visible to the viewer), Fassbinder shows the good people and places of this film in vibrant shadow and modulated light, while the rotten characters gleam. Robert and his extraordinarily devoted (though in no way inferior or dependent) girlfriend Henriette are the self-actualized, affectionate, honest, compassionate ones, and their truthful and openhearted interactions take place in spaces lit like this:


playing for the other (nasty, opportunistic, self-centered, avaricious) team is Dr. Katz, who swindles and makes addicts of Veronika and two elderly Holocaust survivors (who are probably among others not dealt with in the scope of the film). her office/home/trap is completely whitewashed, effecting the feeling that the only comfort or hope or life it can offer is contrived, flattened, and completely fake- and it is also inescapable. everything falls under the terrible whiteness' power, from the palm tree in the white hall

to Veronika herself, all bleached and washed out and sickly, even as she sparkles with the coldness of jewelry and ostentation.
the cleanliness and orderliness of her doctor's corruption eventually drains Veronika of even fake, drug-induced life, and one of the palest frames is the one that displays her demise.


I was stunned by this film on so many levels, but i'll refrain from going into any more of them and simply recommend that you watch "Veronika Voss" for yourself.

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