Chinese Roulette (1976) User Reviews

Left me cold

[gbill-74877 · 6/10 · 17 May 2022]

The setup to this film is straightforward: a married couple cheating on each other are tricked into showing up at their mansion in the country with their lovers at the same time, a maneuver orchestrated by their daughter and her nanny, who show up to watch what happens. Initially the two sets of lovers laugh it off and appear to take what's going on in a very mature way, but gradually we begin to see repressed discomfort and fractured relationships. The housekeeper and her adult son at the mansion play an active role as well, including in the titular parlor game which reveals the cruel way in which one of the people is perceived.

Despite the simple premise, a lot of the history and relationships between these characters remains frustratingly vague and out of reach. It's clear the girl harbors a lot of bitterness towards her parents, seeing the connection of her disability to her parents' infidelities. It's clear that the husband and wife have the most in common at the dinner table, where they do all the talking, but when it comes to an emotional connection and the power of touch afterwards, it's with their lovers. And, I have to say, between the liars, those who are vindictive, and the pseudo-intellectuals, it's pretty damn clear that all of these characters are pretty unlikeable. Beyond that, it's open to interpretation for what Fassbinder was trying to say here.

There are references to Katowice, fascism, and the question of what role a person from today would play during the Third Reich, which along with the cinematography of Michael Ballhaus centering on reflections and mirrors we see made me wonder if a part of this was dealing with Germans of the 1970's coming to terms with their country's Nazi past. There are also aspects that are simply unexplained, such as the line the husband says to the housekeeper, "Ali Ben Basset was murdered in Paris last week. We're the last two left now," the housekeeper inexplicably calling for assistance at the Traunitz manor (which is the nanny's name), and that final gunshot. I liked how it wasn't clear-cut and made me think, but these felt too vague and therefore lost a good portion of their power, at least to me. I also hated the morality tale like ending, with the narration of the traditional marriage vows.

I liked the setup, the visuals, and how the film was constrained to 86 minutes, but I didn't care for these characters, the cold way they were treated, or the script. It just felt like the film was more pretense than substance, which left me disappointed by the time it ended.

As dangerous as Russian roulette?

[sol- · 7/10 · 13 March 2016]

Believing that her parents' longtime extramarital affairs caused her physical ailments, a teenage cripple arranges for both sets of adulterers to unexpectedly meet at a country home in this Rainer Werner Fassbinder thriller. The film is gloriously photographed by Michael Ballhaus, with the camera giddily spinning around to reflect nervousness when the four adulterers first meet, and the very deliberate framing (some actors turned to faced the camera; others not) throughout adds tension. The juice of the film comes from both the girl's initially elusive motives and the sense of emotions about to explode; at one point, her own mother almost shoots her through an open window. Oddly, the film never explores why the daughter has more hostility towards her mother (and vice versa) than her father, but this aside, the only significantly underwhelming aspect of the film is the title game. Nowhere near as dangerous as Russian roulette on the surface, Chinese roulette -- a game that seems to only exist in the film's universe -- is merely a guessing game of sorts, albeit one in which deep resentment is able to surface. Whatever the case, the film is a surprisingly tense ride considering the minimal sets and small cast. It also offers food for thought in terms of who is to blame and whether indeed the girl's parents brought the situation upon themselves through emotionally (if maybe not physically) injuring their daughter.

Chinese Roulette & Querelle

[lasttimeisaw · 7/10 · 24 February 2013]

A R.W. Fassbinder double-feature binge (Chinese ROULETTE 1976 and QUERELLE 1982, his swan song) coincides with a starting point for me to access his oeuvre, as one of the pioneer of modern German cinema, Fassbinder has a burning-too-fast career orbit, as if he was exerting all his energy in cranking out films before his dooming self-indulgent suicide at the age of 37 (with more than 40 works done in 15 years). Yet two films must have its restricted view, but Fassbinder films' mindset nevertheless more or less could be conjectured from them, and his stylish flourish is also mesmerizingly toxic.

Both films could adopt themselves comfortably into a theatrical play not the least courtesy of their (mostly or exclusively) in-door locales, for Chinese ROULETTE, it has a secular tone, 90% of the film takes place inside a rural mansion, with familial secrets, connubial deceptions, mother-daughter hatred, the divide of social strata, vindictive self-destruction viciously unfold and infuse a deleterious corruption even to the onlookers, all is triggered by the innocuous eponymous game. While QUERELLE is projected on more ritualized dark amber light sepia background setting stimulating a claustrophobic oppression of lust and desire within a handful locations (the faux-deck of a ship ashore, the phallus worship Hotel Feria Bar, an underground tunnel for hideaway), a male-dominant sexual obsession mingled with blatant homosexual thrust to an astounding incestuous extremity, brilliantly done via an intuitive candor.

Mirror is a recurrent item in both films, exposes the other-half which reflects the true id inside one's soul, in Chinese ROULETTE the stunning flux of the stationary tableaux interlacing two or three out of the eight characters orchestrates a scintillating picture of a guilt-and-punishment visual symphony with swishy panache; in QUERELLE, mirrors reduce their occurrence but the conscientiously measured compositions transpire an even more ostentatious narcissism with a sultry plume of hormone-excreting rugged contours of male bodies.

QUERELLE is adapted from Jean Genet's novel "QUERELLE DE BREST", whose literature text also introduced through the soothing voice-over of an unknown narrator, the film does stage a sensible amount of poetic license to filter a vicarious compassion through a singular mortal's inscrutable behavioral symptoms; in Chinese ROULETTE, a prose (or poem) soliloquy of androgyny also contrives to reach the same effect (but sounds a trifle recondite when contextualizing it under the film's incumbent situation). Anyhow Fassbinder is a trailblazer in defying the mainstream's prejudices, and very capable of visualize and dissect the tumor of humanity.

The cast, there are 8 characters in Chinese ROULETTE, with almost equal weight in the screen time, but it is the youngest one, Andrea Schober (under Fassbinder's guidance for sure), the crippled girl seeks for revenge to her parents' betrayal and negligence, teaches all of us a lesson (how selfish we are to find a scapegoat for every bit of repercussions happen to us) with such acute insight, fearless audacity and extreme measures. While big name (Anna Karina) and other Fassbinder's regulars (Margit Carstensen, Brigitte Mira, Ulli Lommel) all end up licking their own wounds in the corner.

In QUERELLE, Brad Davis (a real-life AIDS fighter then) is valiant, his masculinity and sinewy physique defies all the stereotyped treatment of gay men in the media, injecting a raw and visceral complexity into Querelle's spontaneous promiscuity and sporadic anger. Hanno Pöschl may fall short to guarantee the vigorous duality required for his two roles, but the gut- bashing combats (or playing) between two brothers fabricate the most erotic intimacy has ever been presented on the screen. Two veterans, Franco Nero is either recording his secret affection in the cabinet or wandering near Querelle from oblique angles; the fading beauty Jeanne Moreau, hums "Each man kills the things he loves", and is lost in her own fantasy of the banquet she can savor.

Personally I incline towards QUERELLE's unconventional approach to kill off the ambiguities of sexual orientation and examine the most primal desire made with blood and flesh, but Chinese ROULETTE achieves another form of success, it maintains a serene aplomb above all the vile assault and bitter turbulence, like the unspecified pistol shot at the coda, no matter who bites the dust, a bullet is never an ultimate solution to all the problems.

Intense

[m67165 · 4 June 2003]

This film is intense. I found it quite entertaining as a psychological thriller. You wonder how far will these people go into the game. Will anyone break? Will the violence become physical? It kept my interest to the very ending, which was a good one.

Eight people and a loaded pistol

[Red-125 · 6/10 · 22 December 2020]

The German movie Chinesisches Roulette (1976) was shown in the U.S. with the translated title Chinese Roulette. It was written and directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder.

Although the cast has two important stars--Anna Karina and Margit Carstensen, acting honors are taken by Andrea Schober, as Carstensen's daughter. Schobar was only 12 when she played this role, but she certainly didn't act like an amateur. (She continued as a professional actor after this film.)

In a way, the movie is old fashioned. Eight people and a loaded pistol are in an isolated castle. The plot plays out from there. (There's a hint of an external threat to two of the characters, but Fassbinder doesn't follow up on it.)

The actual game of Chinese roulette is complex, and the rules were never clear to me. The game was played during the last quarter-hour of the film, and I found this tedious.

In fact, although Chinese Roulette has a solid IMDb rating of 7.3, I didn't enjoy it and don't recommend it. (It worked well enough on the small screen.) I rated it 6. I would have rated it lower, except for my respect for Anna Karina, who died in December 2019, almost exactly a year from when I'm writing this review.

P.S. I don't know if "Chinese Roulette" is a racist term. I hope not. However, there's no way to avoid it, because that's the name of the movie.

A strange and amazing film

[zetes · 9/10 · 19 December 2002]

Like most Fassbinder films, it's seemingly simple, but there's a lot too it when you walk a bit closer. This one sets up a great tragicomic situation: a disabled teenager manipulates her parents each to bring their lover to their summer mansion for the weekend. When the father arrives with his lover (Anna Karina, in a very quiet role), he finds his wife pinned to the floor by her boy toy. A bit later the daughter arrives with her caretaker (and possibly her lover?) who is deaf and mute. Mrs. Kast and her blonde son, Gabriel, take care of the mansion, cook, and so forth. Kast is played by Brigitte Mira, who was so wonderful two years earlier in Fassbinder's Fear Eats the Soul. She's a lot more cruel in this one.

With the situation as it is, their true characters quickly rise to the surface. The parents get the most time; father is loving in his way, but his love is probably only a result of the guilty feelings he has towards his daughter. Mother, on the other hand, is quite the psycho. At one point, as she sees her daughter lumbering along on her crutches from a second story window, she picks up a pistol and aims it at her daughter's back. She uses no euphemisms: her daughter, she believes, has ruined her life.

Fassbinder's direction is exquisite. His framing is so complex, but it's invented to look simple. The simple set might be called stagey by those who are not paying enough attention. When the four lovers meet, Fassbinder circles the camera around them as they pace around each other, creating a dizzying dance. Peer Raben's gorgeous and unique music also should be pointed out.

Not everything works out perfectly. The titular game is an interesting idea to do on film. The eight characters split into two groups, the first picks a person in the house and the second has to guess after they've asked a certain number of questions. I think Fassbinder has a difficult time making the questions and answers meaningful for the film as a whole. These exchanges get a little ponderous as a result, and the only thing that keeps the sequence alive is Raben's score. Like I said, it was quite a daring thing to do, so the fact that it doesn't work out perfectly doesn't harm the film too much. 9/10.

A thought-provoking statement

[cotton_eye · 7/10 · 21 March 2024]

With this film, director Rainer Werner Fassbinder delivered a verdict on the entire established German society of that time. Using the example of a rich married couple and their lovers, the director, in his unique manner, showed the moral principles and stereotypes of the bourgeoisie.

The picture is quite difficult to understand, it is made in a sluggish manner and everything interesting in it comes right at the end. Gravitating towards art-house and intimacy, the film nevertheless makes a lasting impression and provokes reflection after viewing. This topic will probably always be relevant. The new cannot be built without the merciless eradication of the old, as is the main conclusion of the picture.

A manual on how not to live

[oOgiandujaOo_and_Eddy_Merckx · 9/10 · 24 May 2009]

Chinese Roulette is about a marriage. An upper class couple split up for the weekend, each has told lies to the other regarding their destination, however both end up at the same destination with lovers in tow, the schloss in the countryside. This has been carefully machinated by their young disabled daughter who has known of the affairs of her parents for many years.

The scene where Herr Christ and lover walk in on Madame Christ and lover is pretty good, there's initial shock, then they manage to dissociate from their roles and have a good chuckle about it together. Thus begins the weekend.

The daughter arrives and insists on a game of Chinese Roulette, this is an interesting little game. You get two teams of four people, the first team picks a person from the other in a secret conclave. The second team then has to guess who is the person in their team who has been chosen by asking nine questions, of the form, "if this person was a magazine, which magazine would they be?". Anyway the game gets pretty cruel if you want to play it that way, "Which would be the most fitting method of execution for the person in question" for example. You could find titillation in the game by praising someone without them knowing who you are referring to or dark joy in deeply insulting them.

The daughter has arranged it all to grind the adults down. I suppose if there is one message of the film it's that if you breed adders you shouldn't be surprised if they grow up and eat you. The couple have clearly not provided for their daughter (other than materially speaking - she has whatever she wants, chocolates dolls, pretty dresses &c).

The game is an exercise in cruelty, a couple of the answers being pretty good. However there is a lot of insecurity, everyone is wondering if the person who is being described as an apple with a worm inside it is them, furthermore the person answering the question is often blatantly prejudiced and is not understanding the person they are speaking about.

There are some pretty bizarre things going on, the butler-type Gabriel writes unsound doggerel and reads it aloud to the couples (previously only one couple at a time). There are references to a character we never see, strange complicities, unexplained relationships.

One thing you can say though is that the movie is shot brilliantly, there are some wonderful circular shots (trademark of Scorsese and Fassbinder regular collaborator Michael Ballhaus) where the camera orbits the characters, lots of shots of people reflected off glass or cut in two by doorways, some exquisite framing. Perhaps the most exquisite movie I've seen in visual terms. The score too is of a very high calibre.

I take it as a pretty mystical film, one scene that is great is the daughter sat in her bed talking to Gabriel, the camera is at floor level just behind a row of the dolls which she has arranged as a kind of adoring audience for her. You feel like one of the dolls really, it's quite strange. Certainly Fassbinder is railing against certain bourgeois modes here. The characters are isolated by their feelings of self-worth, their deceptions, their victim status, and their sharp tongues, there's no love anywhere. In every relationship in the movie I felt as if it were one possessing the other, as if a trinket.

It's nastiness all around, almost an exercise in misanthropy, another reviewer referred to it as an exercise in deception as a survival tactic. I recently titled a review of mine, "A manual on how to live", well this really is "A manual on how not to live". It's as disparaging to victims as to victimisers. One of Fassbinder's other movies was called Satan's Brew and I really think this one could have been as well .

cold German psycho drama

[SnoopyStyle · 6/10 · 25 April 2022]

Married couple, Ariane and Gerhard Christ, are headed for separate trips. They leave their disabled daughter in the care of their nanny. Unbeknownst to each other, the couple has both gone on trips with their lovers and both end up at the family vacation home. It's a surprising shock but outwardly not necessarily an unhappy one. Then the nanny shows up with the daughter.

The daughter's self-aware self-blame is really damning. There is the coldness. It's all about the interior turmoil. It's very German. It's experimental. It's artistic. It's not for everyone. After an hour, I wanted to slap these people around. I did not like when the movie brings out the big thing at the end. That is when it loses me. It's both cheap and too much. It's cheating in writing.

A Man That Looks On Glass

[Prof_Lostiswitz · 10/10 · 10 October 2004]

A family of rich industrialists has one child - a teenage daughter crippled by some disease she caught 11 years before (probably Muscular Dystrophy). She has every luxury imaginable, and her parents are superficially polite to her - but underneath, they despise her. Her mother, especially, hates her enough to kill her; yet she maintains the appearances of a caring parent.

Both parents have adulterous affairs going - ever since the daughter Angela became crippled by her illness, as the girl sweetly informs us. They both go off to their country chateau at different times on various pretexts, and turn a blind eye to what the other spouse is probably doing. Angela is left in a glittering emotional desert, a gilded cage; her only source of companionship is her mute governess/nanny, a pleasant young lady with a mischievous smile.

Angela has grown to be as elegant and cruel as the people around her, although we can sympathies because we see that there was no way she could learn better behaviour - I like to compare her to Catherine Sloper at the end of The Heiress (1949). She arranges matters so that both her parents book the chateau for the same weekend; so one adulterous couple surprises the other "in flagrante delicto". Being civilised people, they laugh it off and sit down to dinner, determined to enjoy the weekend as a party - but then Angela and the governess turn up. Angela is the most perfect portrayal of a "yuppie b*tch", but we can still feel for her. (At one point she asks the caretaker's son, "Would you be able to love a cripple", and his silence tells us all we need to know.

After she has installed herself at the chateau, she drags herself around the hallways opening various bedroom doors and peering maliciously at the adulterous couples inside; they stare back in unhappy resentment. Later the couples propose to relieve their boredom by some game, so the mother comes up with a bright idea: target shooting! She forthwith aims a pistol out at the courtyard where her daughter is hobbling along; it takes the "other woman" to gently restrain her by holding her hand.

Later, at supper, Angela proposes that they should play her favourite game, "Chinese Roulette", in which one group tries to guess the identity of some individual selected by the other group, by means of indirect questions. The questions become increasingly ruthless and cutting; it becomes apparent that this game is as fiendish as Chinese torture and as deadly as Russian roulette, though it uses words instead of bullets. I don't believe in spoilers, so I won't tell you how it ends.

The photography in this movie is absolutely stunning; many of the scenes are shot through (or reflected in) glass, suggesting the glittering falsehood and superficiality of these people's lives. The colour composition is exquisite, words cannot really describe it. The slow movements of the characters are choreographed almost like ballet. The spooky music is just used at intervals making this feel like a horror movie (which it really is). Fans of "evil child" movies should check out this one, which raises everything to the max.

The director, R. W. Fassbinder, said that he wanted to portray what happens when parents fail to love their children. RWF has a reputation for making art movies with obscure meanings, but this isn't one of them - it's a very rewarding experience, I urge everyone to see it. Everyone is entitled to make the odd clunker, and the guy hit the mark more often than not.

"Have you ever been to hell?" (Gabriel Kast)

[hasosch · 10/10 · 11 October 2009]

"Chinese Roulette", directed by R.W. Fassbinder (1976), is kind of a minimalist work, and, as it turns out, the quite right surrounding for a very special form of social terrorism as executed by a child.

Also simple is the structure of the characters - and the more impressive, when you see during the movie which Eigen-dynamics it discloses: Gerhard Christ and his wife Ariane have a marriage that is founded on money. He has a girlfriend - the Parisian Irene, she has a boyfriend - the husband's collaborator Kolbe. But these are not the only couples in the movie: There is also mother Kast and son, Gabriel. And then there is an informal couple, Gerhard and Arianes daughter Angela and her nurse Traunitz. (Watch the names: Christ, Ariane vs. Irene, Gabriel, Angela. Who is the devil? The arch-angel Gabriel's mother or daughter Angela "the angel"?).

Since everybody lied on everybody telling one another that they are going to Oslo, Milano and to the Zoo, they all meet quite unexpectedly in the family-castle. Now, everybody is unable to have his privacy with his respective boy- and girlfriend. So, one drinks and is bored until the handicapped daughter Angela desires to play "Chinese Roulette" (a play that has been invented by R.W. Fassbinder as a verbal analogy to Russian Roulette). Fassbinder said concerning this movie in an interview in my translation: "I think that relationships between humans are largely defined by conflicts. If I sit at my desk and just write something down without reflecting much, then there will probably be written more about conflicts than about attentions between humans".

Has its moments, but not enough

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 6 July 2016]

"Chinesisches Rouelette" or "Chinese Roulette" is a West German color film from 1976, so this one has its 40th anniversary this year. The writer and director is Rainer Werner Fassbinder and he was 30 when he shot this movie less than 100 years before his untimely death. It is a bit of an unusual film for him as the character in here is a girl (on crutches) and usually his protagonists were female grown-up women. Of course, there are also grown-ups in here. Also the movie stays easily under 90 minutes, which is also not too common for Fassbinder films. Carstensen, Mira, Lommel and Spengler are all actors that worked with Fassbinder on a regular basis and they have a couple good scene s in here too. I also somewhat liked the premise of everybody playing Chinese Roulette here, but sadly it really takes quite a while until they finally do and everything before that simply is not very interesting. I struggled a bit with the characters in general. Of course, it's rarely the case that there are likable characters in Fassbinder films, but I also cared for hardly anybody in here, maybe only the girl. As a whole, I must say I was glad this film was over fairly quickly as I felt the negative outweighed the positive. It's not one of Fassbinder's best or worst, but I would not really recommend the watch. Thumbs down.

Brilliant!

[AhmedSpielberg99 · 9/10 · 14 August 2021]

Chinese Roulette is a film fraught with cruelty and downright evil, lurking beneath sinister grins and betrayed by disconcerting laughs, waiting to be inflicted on everyone. Revolving around a married couple who are both having affairs, it's also a film of fraudulence and dishonesty. Just like Frau Kast's reaction after seeing the beggar who's been pretending to be blind all along taking off his glasses, the couple's, Kolbe and Ariane, reaction at seeing each other with their respective lovers is laughter; just jarring laughter, followed by silence and awkward intimacy. Then, themes of questionable and twisted morality are on full display, as we see Fassbinder toying with our views of what's right and wrong regarding fractured marriage and infidelity, while instilling it with a provocatively dark comedic tone in the process.

Michael Ballhaus's camera constantly moves around people, going to and fro and switching the perspectives between them. Often through over-the-shoulder shots, which are predominantly used throughout, we see the four characters perceive each other's feelings while their minds concurrently preoccupied by the same thoughts and concerns. In a Persona-like style, Michael Ballhaus' blocking uses the profile of one actor to cut off the other, so that each two actors of the four seem to occupy the same space at the same time. We also get shots through glass and see-through objects, and doors unlocked or left ajar. Yet, and as Angela says, "Eavesdroppers often hear the false truth," what our characters see in, or hear about, each other couldn't be further from the truth, which is demonstrated by shallow, medium close-up shots, where a certain character is showcased in crisp focus and from the chest up, yet somewhat also noticeably distant.

"In their hearts, they blame me for their messed-up lives." In a world where love is neither important nor fulfilling, and marriage is as brittle as glass, it is hardly surprising that it has stony-hearted and awfully terrible parenting. The cheating spouses' daughter, Angela - who's disabled, walking with crutches - has one of the revoltingly cruelest mother-daughter relationships I've seen depicted in film. Nothing comes close to it save for the one in Autumn Sonata. However, in Bergman's film, mistreatment and neglect built up a charge over the years, exploding in the form of spitefully hurtful remarks, whereas here we're witnessing the build-up, displayed growing in silent insinuations, until eventually blowing up - at the wrong target. In the climactic protracted sequence of the titular guessing game, the film contorts itself into a game of allusions to the characters' identities. This is where the film is at its most suffocating and claustrophobic despite the plenty of room given to decipher each enigmatic character. Personally, I feel that what's revealed about them leaves much to be desired, but that's perhaps its intended purpose. Hence, the ambiguous ending.

It's insane how every main character in Chinese Roulette is hateful and despicable. Like, there's not a single one of them that could be called 'nice'. Nevertheless, it's easy to understand their deeds and comprehend their feelings. They feel like flawed, real people; incredibly horrible but real. Neither the husband nor the wife shows a visible sign of remorse whether towards one another or their daughter. Instead, they couldn't care less about any of these matters, and their actions appear to be solely driven by lust or unabashedly ruffling each other's feathers. Though undoubtedly a victim of a dysfunctional family and one whose only outlet to speak is through sign language with her governess, Trauntiz, Angela herself certainly ain't no angel. She even has some sort of a malevolent omniscient ability, enabling her to see through the rest of the characters and ultimately seems to have the upper hand on them. That's not mentioning there's a clear sense of creepiness about her, symbolised by her dolls. Kast is a cranky old woman confined to household chores who looks at anyone with a jaundiced eye, Gabriel Kast is a murky character trapped in adolescence and adulthood. He's the only one besides Angela, however, who seems to seek the truth, which explains the odd bond between the two of them.

Chinese Roulette is a bleak and distressing chamber piece that demands contemplation, but it's surprisingly accessible due to the stylish camera work and fleshed-out, if deliberately vague, characters. Set in a world of heinous people hiding their deep-rooted nastiness with lies and silence, the film shows an edifice of fascism of family, which they built, coming down upon them. Chinese Roulette also has a warped sense of humour at play, manifested in its absurdist undertones, and further reinforced by a light classical music. It's a film that doesn't stop at seeing the parents' failures paid for by the children, and decides to offer them a chance to revenge themselves in the most wicked of ways. Crude, cold and intellectual, my first Fassbinder sure won't be the last and most likely would serve as a springboard into his filmography.

Chinesisches Roulette

[RaulFerreiraZem · 10/10 · 16 September 2019]

Amazing film. One of Fassbinder's greatest. I love how simple and short this film is. it has a very limited cast of characters. Basically one location. And also one conflict, which is way too complicated and entangled to be solved.

It's about this couple that has been conflicted by the illness of their child, who, because of that started to despise them, so she orchestrates this scenario where she essentially does her best to emotionally cripple them the best she can. All common themes in Fassbinder's vocabulary. The exploitation of feeling. The class war in the context of relationships. Power relations. The patriarchal oppression.

But the thing that gets me the most about this is how direct it is. It has absolutely no mercy. It curses in any way it can the idea of monogamy and matrimony ( evidenced by the text in the last shot of the film). I love how Fassbinder used some of his films as ways to vent about his failed relationships and all of the harm he's done to others, and that, in this film specifically is very clear to me.

I also love the camera work by Michael Ballhaus who is great as expected. The way that the camera follows the climate of the film and essentially goes nuts in the end when all of the characters are tense and stressed out is very amusing and expressive. Also the whole entirely of the last 30 or so minutes are absolutely astounding. I have watched this film 3 times already and i still get anxious every time i see it.

Anyway, if you like Fassbinder's films you will probably like this one. If you don't then you might. And if you never watched one before i suggest maybe watching Ali Fear eats the soul or The Marriage of Maria Braun first.

What a revelation!

[christopher-underwood · 10/10 · 3 August 2020]

What a revelation! Despite loving the early films of Fassbinder but becoming less keen with some of the later works, here was one I had never encountered before yet is an absolute gem. Thanks to the close working relationship with cinematographer Michael Ballhaus (who would later work with Scorcese and many others) this is as visually spellbinding as it is intellectually involving. The minimal storyline revolves around four pairs of individuals thrown together, or more likely brought together by an emotionally starved young daughter for an undoing of their convenient marital set ups and possibly also their privileged position as part of the wealthy establishment within a 'new' post-war Germany. And yet because the dialogue is so believable and so biting and the surface politeness barely concealing the various levels of hatred between the staff, their masters, the lovers and the bitter daughter and her nurse, this is like eavesdropping on some awful event whilst the music of Kraftwerk plays and the camera spins.

Call it overrated

[celsokl · 25 August 2001]

Sometimes directors guarantee a place in Cinematography Hall of Fame and all of a sudden every work from them become masterpieces. "Chinesisches roulette" is a nice example of an overrated movie. The messed up family and the psychological battles are nice, but no espectacular work for sure. The actors sometimes seem to be intentionally exaggerating, sounding and looking completely artificial. Save a coin for the little girl. Das ist alles.

If Helmut Newton Had Directed A Movie

[theognis-80821 · 8/10 · 26 April 2022]

This visually arresting, stylish film stars Alexander Allerson as a man, who takes his mistress (Anna Karina) to his country estate for a weekend, unaware that his wife (sharp-featured, elegant Margit Cartensen) has the same plan with her lover (Ulli Lommel). The mix-up has been engineered by their crippled teenaged daughter, Angela Christ (Andrea Schober), who, along with her caregiver (Macha Meril), soon joins them. The mansion is managed by nasty, eccentric housekeeper/cook Brigitte Mira, assisted by her pretentious poet/philosopher son (Volker Spengler). In the evening, Angela Christ arranges a dinner party for the eight principals, after which they play a parlor game-as the upper middle class may be inclined to do-called "Chinese Roulette," a sort of parody of self-revelation. What this means may be subject to all sorts of liberal interpretations, but one thing seems clear: if Helmut Newton had directed a movie, it might look something like this.

has a couple of noteworthy moments, but mostly boring

[Quinoa1984 · 5/10 · 25 October 2008]

I wasn't sure what I would get with Chinese Roulette, a little-known film from RW Fassbinder featuring one of the stars of the Nouvelle vague, Anna Karina, but I wasn't expecting this. I'm reminded somewhat of what a friend of mine says of Michael Haneke's movies (while I don't entirely agree, I can see his point): "Nothing happens - nothing happens - nothing happens - nothing happens - *something* happens- nothing happens, end of movie". While things do happen in Chinese Roulette- a film about two couples who come to someone's home for a weekend and one of the couple's children, a crippled young girl who became that way (I guess it's insinuated) from something her parents did has some kind of effect on the group of people in the house to do what she says leading up to a climactic mind-f*** of a 'what-if' game- they're not of much consequence, at all.

I didn't care about a single character in the film (maybe the pretentious writer for a moment, maybe), not a single one, and that's part of the key to Fassbinder's problem. It's not direction, since that's actually something a strong suit for him, maybe too strong in some scenes where he pushes the 'intense-camera-zoom' too far. It's just the overall feel and mood and the performances; particularly disappointing is Karina, who is not just a great star of her time with her muse/ex-husband Godard but an underrated actress, who just spends a lot of time moving her eyes about thinking what's going on around her is interesting. Only the climactic game holds any interest- if only clinically- and it really only picks up (the aforementioned "something") with the final question.

Or, in another word, one that is too hard for some Fassbinder die-hards to mutter: boring, metaphorical clap-trap.

You're up to something, aren't you?

[lee_eisenberg · 8/10 · 20 May 2023]

Rainer Werner Fassbinder was one of the leaders of New German Cinema in the '70s, sometimes making two or three movies a year before his death from an overdose at 37. His most famous movies were probably "Veronika Voss" and "The Marriage of Maria Braun", but also good was his "Chinesisches Roulette" ("Chinese Roulette" in English).

This movie focuses on a handicapped girl who follows her parents to an estate where both of them are having affairs. Before long, the girl gets everyone to play the title game. Of course, the movie is also about letting these individuals' nature emerge as the story progresses. This exercise in cold intellectualism was one of many movies from that era lifting the lid on the supposed good qualities of affluent people (another was "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie"). As for the ending, it's for you to decide; the important stuff has already transpired.

Basically, it's a profound, disturbing piece of work. Not that I'd expect less from Fassbinder. Despite his limited output, he made his mark, including this movie. Definitely see it.

A lot of meaningful glances signifying nothing.

[Ben_Cheshire · 1/10 · 18 May 2015]

The scenario is promising: a manipulative crippled daughter, estranged parents and their new lovers, the promise of a game of Chinese roulette, potentially sinister or magical caretakers of a mansion... There were so many interesting things that might have happened... Perhaps with a mid-script overhaul this could have been a cool horror movie.

But the finished product is a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing. The cast are like a bunch of stilted marionettes staring at each other, saying abstract things.

People behave like directionless props; there's no tension or drama, and nobody cares. I believe there may have been some kind of master plan at work here, but something got sucked out of it between concept and page and the whole thing is just empty and pointless.

A movie with great potential, but it needed about 12 more rewrites than Fassbinder gave it.

Nothing happens

[ppedrogarcia · 2/10 · 25 July 2020]

Boring/10 Nothing happens in the beginning. If you wait a while you will think something is about to happen, but then it doesnt. By the moment something actually starts to move the story, you are already so tired of this brilliant piece of art that all you can think about is how brave you were to hold for so long and you will be wondering about the many other much, much better movies you could have watched. If take the worst things from Godard's Contempt and extend it for almost 90 minutes you will find something that resembles this film. Also some influences from Bergman's Persona. By the way, watch Persona instead, it's a better movie in all possible senses. Not that it's saying much; Chinese Roulette is terrible.

There are a few interesting shots but given everything else i risk to say that's just statistics. The overall tone of the presentation doesn't fit the tone of the screenplay at all. For example, in the beginning of the movie there is a close up of the wife's lover and he bites his lips in the most cartoonish way possible in a movie that seems to attempt realism. But it just seems so. The tone of this movie is a mess. Some times it feels a cartoonish piece and immediately after, in the very next shot in the same scene, for no reason at all, it shifts and tries to be realistic again.

A Brittle Explosion

[ocaastro · 5/10 · 16 June 2005]

This film brings together family members in an explosive situation involving sex. The tension steadily increases until violence erupts. You might say it occurs all the time with a thousand variations. As I watched the film it reminded me of the plays of Georges Feydeau, the great classic bedroom farces that continue to be presented all over the world.

Feydeau's tactic is to bring together people in situations and circumstances that the participants would never in a thousand years want it to happen. Feydeau sees how ridiculous sex can be particularly when it leads to misbehavior, Fassbinder studies the tragedy sex can bring to a family, particularly where children are concerned. Personally I prefer the French touch.

Pretentious detritus

[evening1 · 1/10 · 22 May 2022]

Ordinarily I am a big fan of director Werner Fassbinder, but this film is so full of unpleasant or uninteresting characters that after an hour of trying to make it to the credits, I pushed "delete."

We have a story here of cheating spouses and their disabled daughter, whom they seem to alternatingly hate or ignore. Throw in their brooding lovers, a nasty maid and her enigmatic son, and an overly long game akin to "20 questions" in German, and you've created one doozy of a downer.

I don't know what got into Fassbinder to waste his talents on this drivel. I've had better times watching Sprockets on "Saturday Night Live."

They're Wrong, Therefore I'm Right

[boblipton · 4/10 · 3 May 2022]

Alexander Allerson says he's going to Oslo. Wife Margit Carstensen says she's going somewhere else. When they both show up at the same rural hotel with their lovers, there's uncomfortable laughter. How awkward! When their crippled daughter, Andrea Schober, shows up, having arranged the mix-up, there's a lot of frozen-faced nastiness and sexual swapping going on in this Rainer Werner Fassbinder movie.

This examination of loveless, eternal, heterosexual marriage is charmingly shot by camera man Michael Ballhaus. It's pick pick pick at the scabs of normative relationships that the director delights in, a series of straw-man indictments of a system that, like all human institutions, is flawed. There's not a sign of anything better. Having made his points, the auteur retires victorious.