According to the description on the DVD I received of Satan's Brew from netflix this was the first actual full-on comedy that Rainer Werner Fassbinder directed. I imagine watching the film that it was something that was building up in him and basically, in a near literal expression in his art, exploded. This film is about as kinetic and sharp-tongued as Marx Brothers, as insane as the best Mel Brooks, and even has some of that completely f***ing gonzo sensibility that one only finds with other tales-of-writers like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas which has little to do with actual writing and mostly to do with how far its creative genius will go in excess and other "shenanigans." I can probably make more comparisons, but it might be unfair to the success Fassbinder pulls off here: it's as inspired as all of those, but it's all him, his natural excesses and *big* personality coming out in the cracks (big cracks) of the story and the character Walter (Kurt Raab).

Simply put, this movie is not just funny, it's hysterical. It's so hysterical that you'll laugh at yourself while laughing at what's going on on screen. Fassbinder's tale of a writer who hasn't written in years, spends all of his advance money on whores, has a lunatic brother obsessed with flies and having his way with them, has a wife whom acts more like a mother than anything (albeit she reminds him it's been 17 days... no, 18 days since sex last happened),and then at the end of his rope financially and mentally and with a really (more than relatively) crazy sycophantic woman following him everywhere he goes turns to pretending he's a homosexual 19th century poet, is like a loaded baked potato. Really loaded; you'll wonder where something might suddenly pop, until something else interesting happens - Fassbinder will write his characters and direct his actors in moments of seriousness, taking us into moments that do feel real and not just super absurd pieces of German theater.

Suffice to say it helps that Fassbinder has the exact right person to play this unlikely (very unlikely) anti-hero with Walter: Kurt Raab has a look that is devilish, diabolical, slightly seductive and with the possibility of violence or the unexpected at the drop of a hat. He's also as funny as the material can get him to be, which includes saying random lines like to a leering restaurant patron, "Quiet, you person!" Sometimes just his demeanor is amusing, and also frightening and highly charged; he is in a way like the Cartman ala South Park for Fassbinder, as a figure who is pretty twisted, verging on if not just evil (dont assume anything with that opening murder!),and surrounded by a league of people who he can manipulate or feel crossed by or just not know what to do with (his "biggest fan" whom he make walk out in the cold in a thin raincoat or stay under a friend's rug). Just watching him react to the brilliant actor playing so over the top the fly-fixated brother is classic stuff.

Towards the end it becomes grim, and possibly stranger than ever. It's also overall not something you'll want to show your mother (unless, you know, your mother is a Fassbinder fan or into crazy German cinema). But for a certain niche audience it's about as uproarious as any anarchic comedy, and in fact as beautifully directed as anything of the great slapstick or surrealist days. In this case, they go hand in hand; it's one of the director's very best. A+

Walter Kranz (Kurt Raab) is a poet who got famous by his early revolutionary communist work. However, since a couple of years, he suffers from being blocked to continue writing. Since his savings are coming to an end, he borrows money from everyone without being able to pay it back. When even his furniture is impounded , he remembers an old admirer of his who writes him since years. He invites her to his apartment, where his insane brother and his foolish wife live, lets her pay his living and abuses her wherever he can, since he feels that she admirers him for doing that. Inspired to his more and more fascist behavior, one day, he writes a poem, until he finds out that it is from Stefan George, one of the spiritual precursors of National Socialism. He also re-detects the work of Schopenhauer whose central conception of "Will" becomes an obsession for Walter Kranz. From here, it is only a short step until Walter Kranz turns into "Stefan George". He hires a few cheap actors and a male prostitute (played by film-director R.W. Fassbinder's boy-friend Armin Meier) and celebrates week for week George-sessions like the real Stefan George did, imploring the prostitute as the divine "Maximin".

As a matter of fact, the further development of Walter Kranz is not only that he finally realizes that he is not Stefan George and that one cannot "learn" to become homosexual, but he simply discovers that with right-extreme poetry he can earn much more money and get much more fame than with his left-extreme early work. So, suddenly hit by a "genial" inspiration, he writes in a short time a whole new book, entitled "No funeral for the dead dog of the Führer". The most interesting part of the movie, not so shocking, however, for Fassbinder-connoisseurs, is that all of Kranz's former socialist friends give his new fascist poetry a splendid reception. His publisher gives him a long-awaited advancement, his unloved wife dies, his beautiful girlfriend (played by Fassbinder's wife Ingrid Caven) moves into his generous flat, the shot whore awakes back to life, and everybody is convinced that "fascism will be winning".

R.W. Fassbinder has given to this rather arcane work of his and his only "comedy" a hint for a possible interpretation: He showed at the beginning and at the end the French original and the German translation of a quotation by Antonin Artaud according to which the pagans are much closer to Creation and God because they do not start with the humans. Everybody who was convinced having seen for once an "understandable" and "light" Fassbinder is cheated. Rightly so.

I definitely understand, that this film is not for everyone, but I also have to say it is one of my all time favorites and there are not many movies i have seen that often. In fact every time somebody new steps into my live, I have to watch this movie with him, and i saw every possible reaction meanwhile.

But still, this is my favorite Fassbinder movie and this for several reasons. The most important of these is, that the movie has a rhythmical quality from the beginning to the end. Also there are literally hundreds of remarkable quotes inside. It is black humorous, funny and the overacting is terrific. It is amazing how Fassbinder manages to change the mood radically from scene to scene, how he is playing with emotion, speed and dynamic.

Of course people who are interested in Fassbinders historic post war movies and expect something like that will be disappointed, but if anybody is interested in the absurd elements, that appear in most of Fassbinders movies, Satansbraten gives you the possibility to enjoy them to the fullest. So get some friends, watch this movie and have a good time seeing lots of grown up people jumping around and repeating words for at least three times. Geld Geld Geld.