"Fassbinder"

One of Fassbinder's most unusual and daring films, In a Year of Thirteen Moons stars Erwin Spengler as a man desperately in love with his business partner. He decides to have a sex change operation, becomes Elvira, but this fails to attract the love of his beloved. Instead, the new "she" finds a series of damaging relationships and betrayals. Fassbinder uses harsh color, asymmetrical sets, a dissonant sound track and alternating narrative techniques to evoke the pain of Erwin/Elvira in a film that stretches the boundaries of conventional storytelling.
(In a Year of Thirteen Moons)


Do you remember the afternoon when we first saw it, four summers back? You were just “Sterling” before I put the tape in, before I put it down and laid it out. The whole sick mess. You were barely more than a ghost. You had white hair, a white face and swollen red lips. You were the shook one with your hand in your pocket.

We watched the movie and shot dope. We used the same works and the same toilet. The Do Not Disturb sign was duck taped to the door. U2’s “One” played on repeat in the background.

When it was over you sat transfixed watching the different shades of black pass across the screen before it turned into static. You didn’t want to believe it was really over.

“What happens next,” you asked, your voice as flat as a pancake.

“The movie leaked out of the TV,” I said. “It’s my movie now, and you’re the star.”

You trudged over to the window and leaned your head against the sill.

“Where are the cameras?”

“Hidden. Everywhere. Can’t you feel their harsh glare burning up the room?”

You lit a cigarette and ran your good hand through your hair.

“When does the shooting start?”

“It already has, Sterling Fassbinder. Everything has already been changed forever.”


jg