The Third Generation

Just what we always wanted: the every-day angsts of a terrorist cell as Life with the Lyons. Fassbinder's basic proposition is simple: the West German state is already so repressive that it might well have invented its terrorists as scapegoats for its own growing totalitarianism. Hence this 'comedy in six acts, just like the fairy stories we tell our children, to make their short lives more bearable'. It's a return to the grotesquely overplayed melodrama of Satan's Brew, acted by the entire RWF stock company, plus Bulle Ogier and Eddie Constantine, with a gaggle of haute couture 'subversives' going through the film noir motions of paranoia and anti-capitalist rhetoric. And it's formulated as an affront to all conceivable audiences: if the concept doesn't make you ill, then the interpolations of lavatory graffiti and the constant barrage of background noise from TV and radio will certainly give you headaches. Essential viewing.