Film Review: Lili Marleen (1981)

Rainer Werner Fassbinder, the enfant terrible of post-war German cinema, is a paradoxical figure in film history. His career, though abbreviated by his death at 37, was astonishingly prolific, yielding over 40 feature films, operas, and theatrical works in barely two decades. A director notorious for his unflinching exploration of societal decay—whether through the lens of racism, homosexuality, or the moral rot festering beneath West Germany’s economic miracle—Fassbinder’s films often alienated mainstream audiences despite their critical acclaim. His aesthetic, a collision of Fassbinder’s self-proclaimed “Hollywood irony” and the stark realism of the New German Cinema movement, left him stranded between artistic ambition and commercial viability. Lili Marleen (1981), released a year before his death, stands as his most explicit attempt to bridge this chasm. A kaleidoscopic blend of biopic, musical melodrama, and Holocaust story, the film is both a testament to Fassbinder’s ambition and a cautionary tale of a visionary straining to reconcile his idiosyncratic voice with populist appeal.

The film’s classification as a “biopic” is, at best, a tenuous claim. While Lili Marleen draws loose inspiration from the life of Lale Andersen (1905–1972), the German singer immortalised by the titular song, it functions more accurately as a roman à clef. Andersen’s semi-autobiographical 1972 novel Sky Has Many Colours—a fictionalised account of her wartime experiences—provides the skeletal structure for Fassbinder’s narrative, though the director embellishes and reconfigures events to suit his thematic preoccupations. Andersen, a polarising figure who endured censorship under the Nazis and later represented West Germany at the 1957 Eurovision Song Contest, was a woman whose career became inextricably tied to the contradictions of 20th-century German identity. Fassbinder, however, eschews biographical rigour in favour of allegory, transforming Andersen into Willie, a fictionalised cipher for his broader meditation on complicity, art, and survival.

The plot unfolds with a mythic simplicity that soon spirals into operatic complexity. Set against the encroaching shadow of World War II, the film opens in 1938 Zurich, where Willie (Hanna Schygulla) ekes out a marginal existence as a cabaret singer. Her affair with Robert Mendelsson (Giancarlo Giannini), a Swiss-Jewish pianist, is as much a collision of passion as it is of ideological friction. Robert’s father, David Mendelsson (Mel Ferrer), a wealthy businessman orchestrating the escape of Jews from Nazi Germany, views Willie’s perceived moral ambiguity with disdain. Through his connections, he arranges Willie’s deportation to Germany, where she falls under the patronage of Roman Henkel (Karl-Heinz von Hassel), a Nazi official whose sponsorship enables her to record Lili Marleen—a song based on Hans Leip’s poem. Initially a commercial failure, the song’s fortunes pivot with the outbreak of war, becoming a wartime anthem beloved by Axis and Allied troops alike. Willie’s ascent to stardom under the Nazi regime—and her simultaneous exploitation as a propaganda tool—mirrors the moral ambiguities of survival in a totalitarian state. Meanwhile, Robert embarks on a quixotic mission to infiltrate the German resistance, a subplot that veers between poignant and preposterous.

Fassbinder’s intent to court international audiences is evident in every frame. Shot in English—a rarity for the director, whose previous works were staunchly German-language—the film’s narrative scaffolding leans on the familiar tropes of wartime romance and moral dilemma. The casting of Giancarlo Giannini, an Italian star with crossover appeal, as the romantic lead, and the reported interest in courting American actors like Richard Gere and Michael Douglas for the role (ultimately abandoned due to budgetary constraints), underscores Fassbinder’s ambition to transcend his art-house niche. Yet this bid for accessibility sits uneasily with his signature stylistic flourishes. Cinematographer Xaver Schwarzenberger, alongside the uncredited Michael Ballhaus, bathes the film in hyper-saturated hues that evoke the artificial glamour of 1940s Technicolor musicals. This visual opulence, juxtaposed with the grim realities of war and genocide, risks accusations of aesthetic detachment. Critics have derided the film’s “kitsch” sensibilities, yet this critique misses Fassbinder’s deliberate invocation of melodrama as a narrative device—a means to interrogate the dissonance between personal desire and historical catastrophe.

Peer Raben’s score, while not a standout in the composer’s filmography, serves as the film’s connective tissue. The recurring motifs of Lili Marleen, arranged in myriad forms—from wistful ballad to militaristic march—anchor the narrative in a cyclical rhythm, echoing the song’s dual role as a symbol of unity and oppression. Fassbinder further amplifies the film’s meta-commentary by repurposing combat footage from Sam Peckinpah’s The Cross of Iron (1977), a choice that underscores his fascination with the intersection of art and exploitation. The recycled war scenes, jarring yet effective, serve as a reminder of cinema’s capacity to aestheticise violence—a theme central to Fassbinder’s oeuvre.

The performances, while uneven, are anchored by Schygulla’s magnetic portrayal of Willie. A Fassbinder muse since her breakthrough in The Merchant of Four Seasons (1972), Schygulla imbues Willie with a haunting vulnerability that transcends the script’s occasional underdevelopment. Her character, torn between ambition and guilt, becomes a vessel for Fassbinder’s recurring interrogation of artistic complicity. Giannini, though credible as the tormented Robert, lacks the gravitas to elevate the role beyond its schematic contours. The supporting cast, however, delivers moments of brilliance: von Hassel’s portrayal of Henkel oscillates between charm and menace, capturing the banality of evil with chilling precision, while Mark Bohm’s Taschner—the loyal pianist whose quiet heroism contrasts with Willie’s flamboyance—provides a moral counterpoint that resonates more deeply than the central romance.

Yet Lili Marleen’s most glaring flaws lie in its narrative structure. Fassbinder’s script, co-written with Thea Eymèsz, attempts to juggle multiple genres and subplots with mixed success. The subplot involving Robert’s espionage mission to gather evidence of Nazi death camps feels perfunctory, tacked onto the melodrama without sufficient emotional or thematic integration. This tonal dissonance reaches its nadir when Fassbinder, in a moment of uncharacteristic self-indulgence, casts himself as resistance leader Günther Weissenborn—a cameo that borders on self-parody. Worse still, the film’s final act includes a baffling reference to Fassbinder’s own Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980), a television miniseries that would have been utterly obscure to all but the most ardent cinephiles. These choices betray a director torn between populist storytelling and avant-garde pretension, resulting in a work that never fully coalesces.

Nevertheless, Lili Marleen remains a fascinating artifact of Fassbinder’s career—a film that, for all its imperfections, encapsulates the contradictions of its creator. It is a work of audacious ambition, blending historical inquiry with operatic excess, and a film that dares to ask whether art can ever transcend the moral compromises of its creation. While it may not rank among Fassbinder’s masterpieces—Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974) or The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979) remain more cohesive expressions of his genius—it offers a compelling entry point into his oeuvre for viewers unacquainted with his more challenging works. For historians, it serves as a provocative meditation on the role of artists under totalitarian regimes; for cinephiles, it is a testament to Fassbinder’s restless experimentation with form.

RATING: 6/10 (++)

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