Mutter Küsters' Fahrt zum Himmel

Frau Kusters is preparing dinner late one seemingly ordinary afternoon in her seemingly ordinary kitchen in Frankfurt, Germany. Mrs. Kusters wants to add canned sausages to the stew, her annoying daughter-in-law thinks otherwise. The point, we soon find out, is moot: Mr. Kusters has murdered the personnel director at the soap factory where he works before committing suicide.

The film drew on both Douglas Sirk's melodramas and Weimar era workers' films to tell a political coming of age story. Fassbinder also clearly criticizes the small German Communist Party's moderation and "armchair activism". Now, I know nothing about the German Communist Party of the 1970s, but I do know Sirk and Fassbinder's borrowing. This film is one of the most obvious Sirk nods I have seen yet. And, therefore, one of the better Fassbinder films.