Mother Kusters Goes to Heaven (1975) User Reviews

aka Why Did Herman K. Run Amok?

[Quinoa1984 · 9/10 · 12 July 2009]

This could be seen as something of a follow-up to Fassbinder's collaboration of Why Does Herr R. Run Amok, only from a different perspective and slightly altered details. In that film, Herr. R was a seemingly normal, quiet family man with a wife and kid and after putting up with crap from his family and work (even if not really apparent) he just snaps and kills his family and then hangs himself at work. In Mother Kusters Goes to Heaven we don't even see the freak-out and murder and suicide, which is the right decision on Fassbinder's end since this is not about the husband going insane as much as the wife, who in this film, Emma (Brigitte Mira), is still alive, has to 'deal' with the cards she's been dealt. Which includes a newspaper that prints fabrications on the details of Mr. Kusters, children who leave poor Emma all alone to her own devices, and an at-first sympathetic communist couple who take her under their wing and prop up her late husband as a revolutionary.

I would consider this not quite Fassbinder's most 'political' film as another commenter on this site noted (that I would argue would be The Third Generation), but it still contains much of what makes his dramas about urban alienation and, in this case, exploitation work so well. Emma Kusters is so much a genuine house-wife that it's almost too easy for her to be picked apart by people who have their own interests at heart. No one would give her a second look if she wasn't so vulnerable after her husband's death and his crime, so shell-shocked about the event and then the fall-out of not knowing anything else on her mind except for Herman. And like in Fear Eats the Soul, Mira expresses such vulnerability and precise, touching moments as an 'everyday' middle-class German woman who has no such thing as a solid ideology. Perhaps if there's any strong political commentary it's about being aware in the first place, knowing what communists and anarchists actually do when give the opportunity. Why did Hermann K Run Amok? Who cares, they might really say. Emma does, or wishes she could.

There are many great scenes here and moments of cinematographic ingenuity. I loved two particular shots, one where the camera tracks backward from the podium of the communist meeting, at first on the male speaker's face and seeing the audience in a kind of daze, and the other in the "European" ending where the camera moves slowly on Emma Kuster's bewildered expression as the anarchists make their demands, as she is completely alone in a room full of people with guns and hostages. But the curious thing are the two endings. The first, which as perhaps an experiment or just a lack of funds, is the European ending which is quite bleak, even for Fassbinder, as it shows what happens with the anarchist's hostage situation. We see this ending in description via screenplay-subtitles, and it's hard for me to figure if this was intentional or not. The ending that was shot, for America, is better, since it tries to keep the focus on Emma's lost cause of trying to retract the newspaper story via sit-in (and contrary to what you might think, the anarchists aren't any less nasty).

It ends, in fact, with a moment of hope, as the person locking up takes Emma back to his place for dinner, the "Heaven and Earth" with sausages. This too, however, isn't quite the best ending possible. Perhaps a compromise between the two would have been the best thing, as one is too bitter and the other possibly too sweet. Yet as it remains, Mother Kusters Goes to Heaven is one of Fassbinder's most interesting films, one of a few made in a year that also included the underrated Fear of Fear and the powerful Fox & His Friends.

Good Fassbinder with a great Brigitte Mira

[zetes · 8/10 · 31 March 2005]

Good Fassbinder, if a little lethargic. Brigitte Mira, who just passed away earlier this month, plays a housewife who has long settled in her uneventful life. One day, however, her husband commits murder-suicide at the factory in which he works. Suddenly she has to deal with the media, as well as her uncaring family. She can't really figure out why her husband did what he did. Luckily, some local communists show up to help her figure it out. Soon she's a pawn in their politics. And, when they don't satisfy her need for an explanation, a group of anarchists steps in to use her for their own political purposes. The film ends twice – once we read Fassbinder's original scripted ending, then we see the ending he did use. Both work, though I think the first, unfilmed one is a lot more Fassbinder-esque. Mira is wonderful, as usual; some of the family material is too close to Fear Eats the Soul, and is rendered somewhat ineffective because of that.

one of the best German films I have seen

[planktonrules · 9/10 · 17 December 2005]

So far, I have only seen a few of Fassbinder's films. Most (with the notable exception of The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant) I have loved and appreciate that Director Fassbinder was looking for "something different" with his movies. They often broach topics that you would seldom see elsewhere.

This movie is certainly one of these films! The movie begins with Brigitte Mira (Mother Kusters) receiving a phone call that her husband killed his boss' son and then himself at work! There had been no apparent warning signs and Mother Kusters had great difficulty understanding WHY. Unfortunately, she is not helped along this process by her children, as they are an incredibly selfish and self-centered lot. The daughter, a not particularly talented lounge singer, sees this as a chance to get publicity for her lagging career. The son, is a total wimp who lets his shrewish wife dominate him and abandon his mother in her time of need. So who does she turn to? The newspaper man, who promised to give them a fair account if they cooperated, just wanted to create a tabloid piece and twisted much of what they said. To make it worse, the trampy daughter begins sleeping with this reporter--even when she knows what he did--apparently so he can give her publicity and further her career! Well, at first, it appears NO ONE cares. But, at the funeral a "nice couple" meet her and take her home. Unfortunately, they have a hidden agenda and are Communists who only want to use her for publicity by advertising her as the wife of a man driven to "an act of revolution" when he murdered this man! She quickly becomes disenchanted with these jerks and is tricked by radical anarchists into joining them! Then, these radicals go with Kusters to complain to the newspaper about how they misrepresented the story and demanded an apology. This soon culminates with TWO alternate endings: The German version shows the radicals in the editor's office with Kusters when SUDDENLY they pull out guns and take hostages. Then, they make a lot of crazy demands and Mother Kusters appears stunned that she had just been used as an excuse by these nuts. Then, the very end of the film is just in text--the last 5 minutes or so of the movie is described only. Apparently, the anarchists AND Mother Kusters are killed while trying to escape! I would have loved to seen this and can't figure out WHY it was not filmed. Perhaps this was Fassbinder's vision, perhaps the studio thought it was too brutal to show or perhaps there was some weird German law that prevented this ending. Regardless, it was a brilliant ending but I found myself wanting to see it for myself.

The American version picks up when the anarchists and Mother Kusters enter the office. However, everyone at the newspaper pretty much ignores them and goes home! As the do NOT have guns in this version, even the anarchists soon lose heart and go home--leaving poor Mother Kusters sitting alone--refusing to leave. A little later, a nice older man who seems to be the watchman asks her nicely to go. At first she refuses, but agrees to go home with him as he's a widower and is making a lovely meal! A "nice" ending where she seems to find love instead of death in a hail of bullets.

I personally liked having BOTH endings on the DVD. If I had to pick one, I'd pick the German version because it did not seem like a tacked on "Hollywood" ending like the other one.

I particularly liked the acting of Brigitte Mira, as she did a nice job in this movie and Fassbinder's Ali: Fear Eats the Soul. Apparently she did many films for this director and I really admire her "normalness"--i.e., she seems like an everyday older German woman and not someone acting.

I also liked how everyone was portrayed in the movie--her kids, the Communists, the newspapers, etc. It was a very jaded and unflinching view into human nature.

About the only reason I didn't give it a 10 was the ending being all in text. It just left me a little dissatisfied.

Vintage Fassbinder with his exceptional cast company

[ksie_15241 · 11 October 2004]

Another of Fassbinder's 'man's cruelty to man' films, Mother Kusters features the wonderful Bridgit Mira in the title role. She is superb, delivering a wonderfully restrained and poignant performance. Other Fassbinder regulars also appear including Karl Heinz-Bohm (in one of his trademarked icy-sophisticate roles), Margit Carstensen (excellent also as another of Fassbinder's self-absorbed characters) and Ingird Caven (oozing all over the screen brilliantly as a Dietrich-esque singer). All of the Fassbinder films I have seen contain strong female roles, and this movie is certainly no exception. The relationship here between Mira and Caven, as mother and daughter, is particularly interesting, yet not really explored sufficiently.

WARNING: PLOT SPOILERS

The early part of this story deals with the death of Frau Kusters' husband, and the initial repercussions. At first it seems that the movie is to be an indictment of the press. Reporters and photographers immediately swoop-down onto the Kusters family, invading their privacy and mourning, in search of a fantastic story about a homicidal maniac. They sensationalize everything the family tells them about Hermann Kusters, and do indeed print an inaccurate, exaggerated portrait of this simple family man.

But the exploitation of Mother Kusters goes even farther. First, it is her family. They are basically indifferent to their father's passing, and seem to have little concern about their mother's grief. The singer daughter (Caven) even goes so far as to use the sensationalism of the incident to further her career. It is here that a prior conflict between Corrina and her parents is hinted. The singer seems to have some empathy with her mother, and perhaps some deep-rooted issue with her father. But this is never quite explained or explored. Nevertheless, Mother Kusters seems to be alone in showing any respect for her dear departed.

The film then takes a subtle but surprising direction. Whereas the story to this point has dealt with emotional exploitation, Fassbinder introduces a political bend. A seemingly caring couple turn out to be members of the Communist Party. Their interest in the widow is as a symbolic example of the exploitation of the worker. The political angle of the story works surprisingly well, and is taken further with the introduction of anarchists, who of course also wish to use Frau Kusters for their own means.

The DVD version I have contains two endings. The first was apparently never filmed, and is instead shown in a summarized script format. The second was obviously tacked-on at a later date (everyone looks different), for American audiences. This is curious. Although upbeat ('happy'), the second ending is inferior and really rings untrue to the rest of the story. Did Fassbinder really feel this made the movie more saleable, or was this a corporate dictate? The endings' confusion aside, this is an excellent film.

Fassbinder once again explores deeply his usual (apparently personal) themes of emotional exploitation, cruelty, and the the political drama of post WWII Germany. Highly recommended!

Mother Küsters Hasn't a Prayer

[richardchatten · 8/10 · 6 May 2017]

At first I was anticipating an attack on yellow journalism akin to the same year's 'Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum'; but to me this film - with its title evoking Pudovkin's 'Mother', Piel Jutzi's 'Mutter Krausens Fahrt ins Glück' and of course Brecht's Mother Courage - became more and more abstract and stylised as it progressed.

The film's pretty poster paint colours and Brigitte Mira's depiction of stoicism in the face of adversity considerably soften the impact of what could have been an extremely harsh neorealist tract on the systematic abuse suffered by the downtrodden proletariat; and there are quite a few laughs. Very little actually seems to faze the put-upon Emma Küsters, who after receiving what would have been the shattering news that the circumstances of her late husband's death means the loss of her pension simply continues with equanimity her frugal existence assembling plugs in her dining room. Her treatment by a cynical journalist, well-meaning but ineffectual communists and - finally - violent nihilists suggests Fassbinder's mounting cynicism about the motives and effectiveness of the King Logs and King Storks around him that he had so far encountered offering solutions to society's ills, the ironic title effectively declaring the chances of the Mother Küsters of this world ever receiving a break in this world being zero.

Egoism + Solipsism = Anarchism

[hasosch · 10/10 · 31 December 2009]

The above given (qualitative) equation means that if someone is clever enough to recruit solipsist phrases in order to adorn his bare egoism, he finds ways to give his egoism a societal, namely anarchist status and thus the possibility to glorify even terror and murder.

Giving Piel Jutzi's Arbeiterfil "Mutter Krausens Fahrt ins Glück" from 1929 a U-turn, R.W. Fassbinders depicts in one of his most openly political movies the last ten or so days in the life of Mother Küsters. After her husband has killed in affect his boss because he and his colleagues lost their jobs, he is talked up as a hero of the laborers, and soon after the deed, everyone is prone to profit form the alleged heroism of the quiet and during decades never disobeying plant worker. A rich couple which declare themselves as Communists invite Mother Küsters to join their party. But after she had had her introductory speech, other problems seem to be more important. Fassbinder's open critique against this "Salon-Communism" is splendid. However, Mother Küsters is not interested in the doctrine of Communism; all she has in mind is the rehabilitation of her husband whom the newspapers had portrayed as a violent-tempered, drinking bad husband and father. One day, she meats Mr. Knab who calls himself an Anarchist and convinces her that what society needs are not salon-Communists, but determined people who will complete an "action". Soon enough the old woman sees herself amidst of such an "action" in the editorial department of the famous German populist newspaper "BILD". Specially to mention is that Fassbinder decided to exchange the bitter end his movie (which gave its title) by a much more harmless "socialist" version for the American audience - with the effect that during the premiere of "Mutter Küsters Fahrt Zum Himmel", the theater got bomb threats from the ultimate political Left as well from the ultimate political Right. - A movie, despite its age, that has nothing lost from its provocative fervor.

Fassbinder at his most (or least?) radical

[Horst_In_Translation · 6/10 · 5 July 2016]

"Mutter Küsters' Fahrt zum Himmel" or "Mother Kusters Goes to Heaven" is a West German German-language film from 1975, so this one had its 40th anniversary last year. It runs for slightly under two hours and was written and directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, who was 29 when he made this film, but already very experienced. Co-writer is Kurt Raab, who also acts in here, just like in many other Fassbinder films and the original story is by Heinrich Zille. This story is about a woman who fights for the truth when a dubious newspaper article is released that deals with the death of her husband. Fassbinder presents two entirely different endings to this movie and this contrast is possibly the most interesting aspect of the film. Which reaction is more accurate? The pacifist or the radical? I think Fassbinder's take is clear. The radical solution results in tragedy, also for innocents like Mother Küster and the other solution result in her finding happiness again possibly. There's two kinds of heaven and I quite like the title from this perspective. Just like almost always with Fassbinder, the title contains the name of the (usually female) protagonist and for older characters Fassbinder usually picked Brigitte Mira. I cannot blame him and it's nice to see Mira received a German Film Award nomination for her portrayal here. She is such a likable presence. I probably did not end up liking this one here as much as "Angst essen Seele auf", but it was still a convincing watch that almost never dragged which is a good achievement for a film that runs for almost 2 hours. And Mira alone is reason enough to see this one. One of my preferred films when it comes to Fassbinder. Thumbs up.

Finally! A Fassbinder movie that I like!

[Spuzzlightyear · 7/10 · 31 July 2006]

Mother Kunters is just so drolly funny. The story is about a woman coping with her husband's death. Her husband died after he fell into some machinery at work. Oh, and there's something else. Her husband killed 2 people on the job before doing himself in. Actually, if you listen closely during the first 15 minutes of the movie, the "There's something else" line is repeated 3 times, which is very oddly funny. Mrs. Kunsters is of course, devastated by the news, and when her children get together, they all don't really get along, and deal with the death in different ways, her daughter is especially malicious, using the death to promote her laughable music career. Mrs Kusters, not finding solace anywhere, finally finds a couple willing to listen and feel compassion. Problem is of course, they're COMMUNISTS! Ha ha. Pretty soon they're convincing poor Mrs Kusters that her husband's death is directly related to The Plight of The Common Worker! I mean, that's priceless. Pretty soon, she's getting caught up with the hardline commies and soon violently protesting against newspapers that published negative stories about her husband. I mean, clearly we're dealing with manipulation, (both personal and political) and Fassbinder does it brilliantly here. As you could tell by the title of my review, I'm not the biggest Fassbinder fan, but I personally loved this one. Although the ending (the American one even more so) leaves a little bit to be desired, I, all in all, enjoyed this tremendously.

Fassbinder

[gavin6942 · 6/10 · 30 September 2017]

Frau Kusters is preparing dinner late one seemingly ordinary afternoon in her seemingly ordinary kitchen in Frankfurt, Germany. Mrs. Kusters wants to add canned sausages to the stew, her annoying daughter-in-law thinks otherwise. The point, we soon find out, is moot: Mr. Kusters has murdered the personnel director at the soap factory where he works before committing suicide.

The film drew on both Douglas Sirk's melodramas and Weimar era workers' films to tell a political coming of age story. Fassbinder also clearly criticizes the small German Communist Party's moderation and "armchair activism". Now, I know nothing about the German Communist Party of the 1970s, but I do know Sirk and Fassbinder's borrowing. This film is one of the most obvious Sirk nods I have seen yet. And, therefore, one of the better Fassbinder films.

Overrated

[Freethinker_Atheist · 3/10 · 20 December 2021]

It is not a bad film, but has many problems. Acting is extremely wooden, actors just speak their lines, dialogues are not natural. The whole movie is dubbed, often very out of sync. The story does not make sense (the reporters are overly interested in the murder/suicide of an unimportant factory worker) and the endings are lame, especially the second one, which suddenly turns the film into a comedy.

Naiive wife determined to clear murder/suicide husband's name

[mdm-11 · 8 October 2004]

Fassbinder's most political film, mixes all imaginable elements dominating the news in 1970s Germany. The story begins with a radio news bulletin about a factory worker going berserk, killing a supervisor, then himself. The man's lower class family (busy with small assembly "homework") engages in evening small talk, casually mentioning the news flash in their conversation. Minutes later the bad news arrives at the door.

Immediately the vulnerable "Mother Kusters" is hounded by reporters from the boulevard press. Twisting her words, as well as those of children and a pregnant daughter in-law, along with taking countless bad-angle photographs, the press has their story. The name of easy-going, kind and obedient Father Kusters is ruined.

Several characters bring definite color to this unusual story. Mother Kusters' 30-something daughter, an aspiring lounge singer (a la Marlene Dietrich) shamelessly exploits her newly gained celebrity status by initiating press interviews about her father's tragedy, then moving in with the questionable reporter, who also arranged singing work through "connections".

Mother Kusters soon is "lulled in" by some upscale and persuasive communists, who appear sympathetic, but eventually seem to be exploiting the poor old woman for their own political gains. Finally Mother Kusters ends in a bizarre trap she unwittingly fell for: A group of anarchists, under the pretense of assuring that her husband's name will be cleared, use the woman in a hostage stand-off aimed at the release of political prisoners. - The final scene suddenly stops in a freeze frame, with a brief written description of the immediate action to follow. WOW!

Although not among Fassbinder's great classics, this is an impressive film. The statements made here were originally (in the mid-70s) met with criticism. The treatment of communism and anarchy (in a not necessarily negative way) were seen as contrary to common acceptance of the day. Years after the Cold War's end, the story of "the factory murderer" seems dated. Still, a well-worth-seeing film!

One man's meat is another man's poison

[tieman64 · 2 September 2010]

"Mother Kusters Goes to Heaven" was the last film in director Rainer Werner Fassbiner's most politically radical phase, a period from 1970 to 1975 in which he wrote and directed a staggering number of feature films (approximately 23), most notably "The Merchant of Four Seasons", "Ali: Fear Eats the Soul", "Beware of a Holy Whore", "The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant", "Effi Briest" and "Fox and His Friends".

"Mother Kusters Goes to Heaven" tells the story of Emma Kusters (Brigitte Mira), a hard working housewife whose life is turned upside down when her husband - who works at a local factory - kills his boss's son before committing suicide.

Fassbinder's films are often offbeat, and so it's no surprise that "Mother Kusters Goes to Heaven's" tone is all over the place. Part satire, part drama, heavily ironic and rife with distancing effects, the film primarily observes as Emma Kusters deals with her dysfunctional family after her husband's death. Battling for Kuster's attention are also various segments of society, all of whom who seek to exploit the widow's crisis.

So we're introduced to Corinna (Emma's conniving daughter who uses her father's suicide to bolster her lagging career as a singer), media vultures (who sensationalize their stories and portray Emma's husband as a fiend), political activists, anarchists, communists and tabloid reporters, all of whom have hidden agendas.

Eventually it is revealed that Emmas's husband killed his boss due to the threat of factory layoffs. Fassbinder's point, though, is that each character injected into the film serves only to intrude upon Emma's grief and to distort historical truth, robbing her spouse's last acts of their political significance. Misled and appropriated by everyone in sight, treated as a pawn by both the political right and ultra-left, Emma eventually ends up dead, killed off screen like her spouse.

The film's title seems to reference Maxim Gorky's novel "Mother", another tale about a working class woman who develops political consciousness and joins a revolutionary movement, and also "Mother Courage and Her Children" by Bertolt Brecht, a playwright whom Fassbinder admired.

Like these tales, Fassbinder attempts to look at the social and emotional consequences of exploitation, but unlike these works, Fassbinder can find no optimistic solution. "Everybody is out for something," he has Emma say at one point. "Once you realise that, everything is much simpler."

8/10 - Visually the film is a bit scatter-shot – the phenomenal speed at which Fassbinder worked has this effect – but Fassbinder's writing is strong ("Everything is chemicals!") and he makes simple but effective use of symbolism. See "Despair" and "World on a Wire", two of Fassbinder's greatest pictures.

A society without emotional or intellectual energy

[philosopherjack · 4 March 2018]

You might initially consider Mother Kusters goes to Heaven to be one of Fassbinder's flatter, less stylistically interesting films, until it occurs to you that's probably the point, to record a cross-section of a society that hardly has the emotional and intellectual energy to lift its drab ugly ass of the ground. Mrs. Kusters works at home assembling electrical components (some 1,500 a week of them, we're told) while her husband toils in a chemical plant, where one day he kills a boss's son and then himself. The media pounces on the story as a lurid tabloid sensation, trashing the family accordingly; her daughter grabs the chance to wrap herself in scandal and advance her singing career, while Mrs. Kusters's bewildered loyalty to her husband makes her an easy toy for the left, seeking to brandish her as the surviving spouse of an unrecognized revolutionary. Virtually every face is familiar from other Fassbinder works, feeding its sense of claustrophobic insularity, of self-devouring ugliness (nobody ever captured eye-hurting 70's clothes and décor better than Fassbinder did, no matter that he did it in film after film). The restored version of Mother Kusters initially seems to end in terrorism and death, but then a caption introduces an alternative ending, originally used only on the American release it says, which leads to further dissipation of energy, before an act of kindness and a hint of a possible return to happy domesticity. There's no suggestion Fassbinder ever envisaged showing the film with both endings, and yet it's just about perfect, underlining how the tangle of personal and political will only ever resolve itself arbitrarily, either due to the unkind whims of society, or to the (perhaps) more sympathetic ones of the artist. Viewed now, at a time of particular shakiness for progressivity, the film speaks louder than ever of a collective inability to diagnose and shape the present, let alone look to the future.