Mother Kusters Goes To Heaven

Stars: Brigitte Mira (Ali: Fear Eats The Soul), Ingrid Caven, Irm Hermann (The Merchant Of Four Seasons), Gottfried Johns (Berlin Alexanderplatz). Although meant to be satirical in 1976, director Rainer Werner Fassbinder's dark fable about the omnipresence of the media and the disintegration of the nuclear family is eerily realistic today. Brigitte Mira is wonderful as Mother Kusters who, as the film opens, learns that her husband, a factory worker, has gone berserk--killing the boss's son and then taking his own life. Within minutes the media circus arrives, poking and prying into every nook and cranny of the Kusters' lives. As first reporters, then Communist party sympathizers, worm their way into the Kuster family, the family itself begins to unravel. The adult son embellishes his stories of being popped on the butt as a kid to the point where they become drunken beatings, and the adult daughter uses the attention to help further her stalled career as a wannabe singer. (Eventually, in a disturbing scene, the daughter opens in a nightclub where her act is introduced as "The Factory Murderer's Daughter.") In 1976, Fassbinder asked "what if the media were complete slimebuckets?" and then answered the question with this outrageous exaggeration. In 1992, this looks very much like reality. Audience: A must see for foreign film fans. Note: The back cover carries a "Premiere Recommends" sticker. (R. Pitman)[DVD Review--July 15, 2003--Warner, 107 min., not rated, $24.98--Reminding us that more sometimes is truly less, Empire Records: Remix! Special Fan Edition adds 16 minutes of extra footage to a film that wore out its welcome long before the original 91 minutes were up (and then has the chutzpah to add four more deleted scenes). On the technical side, the disc sports pristine image and audio qualities, allowing fans to moon over the film's two biggest assets--the on-the-cusp of stardom young cast that included Renee Zellweger and Liv Tyler, and the admittedly rocking soundtrack featuring tunes by, among others, sadly defunct bands such as Gin Blossoms and Toad the Wet Sprocket (there are also three music vids, but two are--unfortunately--by GWAR). Bottom line: for a DVD release with an exclamation mark in its title, this is a fairly skimpy extras package (not that I'm personally complaining) that is likely to appeal to fans only.]