German Film Series, Fall 2008 - Sexual Revolutions in German Cinema

The Marriage of Maria Braun (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1979)

At the end of WWII, Maria discovers that her husband, a German soldier, has been killed on the front. She takes a job in a bar where she falls in love and gets involved in a relationship with an African-American GI. When her husband Hermann returns unexpectedly, confusion ensues in what becomes a complex filmic exploration of the shifting meanings of relationships, and the intersections of sex, gender and power in post-war German society.