Händler der Vier Jahreszeiten (1972)

Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Starring Hans Hirschmüller, Irm Hermann, Klaus Löwitsch, Karl Scheydt, Hanna Schygulla, Kurt Raab, Gusti Kreissl, Andrea Schober, Heide Simon, Ingrid Caven.

The emptiness that inarticulate, pugnacious fruit peddler Hans (Hirschmüller) feels isn’t one of existential crisis but of emotional starvation; to quote Morrissey, “I am human and I need to be loved.” Fassbinder feels for his subject, perhaps because he’s not a sadsack victim in the vein of Willy Loman or Job, but a deeply flawed and restive man plagued by regrets, rejection, and functional impotence. He’s a societal victim yet a perpetrator of his own doom, a melodramatic cycle that’s as overbearing as it is elliptical, and Hirschmüller’s slack, unpretentious take on the character is refreshing for a film more indebted to high-strung psychodrama/tragicomedy than neorealism. Transgressive but human, ruthless but heartfelt, it’s one of the director’s strongest and most celebrated features. Title translation: The Merchant of Four Seasons.

83/100