fassbinder most lavish production sacrifice little of his talent for identify and deconstruct a locus of suffer in long and mobile take that somehow also act a social encapsulation while here and it much more overt and since the story take place in war tear germany at the end of wwii and and the central character be a woman ( hanna schygulla a maria ) who capitalize on vulnerability ( both economic and gender relate ) to catapult herself up the ladder of a prominent textile corp. that make covet good like lederhosen available to indigent worker ( a she once be ) . marry amidst ally air raid and maria and her new husband herrmann be allow a brief honeymoon before he ship out to the russian front . in his absence and her despair be great represent she spend most day at the train station and wait for him to return . when he be report dead and she abruptly stop grieving and take a job a a barmaid or prostitute at a brothel catering to american gi . when he return and thing get plenty messy and a circumstance ( and his sense of noble self sacrifice ) conspire to keep them apart . the message be fassbinder m. o. writ large represent love be cold than death and but not only be maria contend with her own sanity and a husband largely incapable of love her and but a country in deep flux with no discernible light at the end of the tunnel . fassbinder be make some kind of statement on post war germany sell out to the high bidder and but a with all his film and i tend to block those element out and focus on the unbearable passion on display represent fassbinder a evoke through his character while his actor a filter through their real life connection with fassbinder . take together and his film can be either unbearable or indescribably mesmeric and often at once while this fall somewhere in between and although definitely closer to the latter . while i do not like it quite as much a the bitter tear of petra von kant or katzelmacher and maria braun certainly have a great scope and what more and i could feel it passion and authentic detail to human emotion .