I am writing from Germany. I watched this movie on August, 21. 1979, on my 18th birthday. It was the saddest day in my life. On April 15th that year my friend had committed suicide. I came across this movie by accident. It showed my situation perfectly and gave me a little bit of comfort. Actually, I must have been stunned completely. Fassbinder had made this movie because his own lover Armin Meyer had also committed suicide. My friend seems to have been destroyed inside since his father was a drunkard and full of violence. Germany had lost two world wars. That was the result. All Fassbinder did with his movies is to express the message of self-pity because of this tragedy. German men are rather handsome in general. But mostly dead inside. Robots. Our mothers were forced to give birth without love and satisfaction, often drinking while they were pregnant.. My friend was the most handsome human being I have ever seen, like James Dean or Brad Pitt. But what was it good for? Only to be accused to be kind of a prostitute. We never made love, but I told him that I loved him. There was a lot of misunderstanding and mute silence. I said to him: I am not gay to protect his feelings. And then it happened. It all was like a movie itself. Andreas, I will never forget you. How can I live now....I became a failure in school, because of my mourning, didn't know what was happening to me. It is now over 40 years ago, and this movie reminds me to it..What saved me? I thought I did look like Marilyn, and I read the book about her by Norman Mailer. And GOD saved me right from the start.....a wonderful great riddle, puzzle, mystery..I have solved this miracle/oracle only some days ago...a wonderful novel about the victory of divine love and perseverance...a cautionary tale, my panacea, my serendipity, my hidden agenda And what was it? I became a scholar it collecting all reports on Jayne Mansfield. I spend a fortune to get all information necessary. A complete and expensive archive. Because God told me in April 1967 that she would die soon. That came true in June 1967. And other premonitions also came true: That I would save my father's factory years later, and that I would spend my life learning my mother tongue German and English too by studying these two women. And for three years I am studying the BIBLE too......HURRAY......LOVE inevitable and also incredible and not at all ridiculous. Sad, mad, bad, Glad......Truth is what people believe in the end.
Three different stages of awakening, or kinds of films, where the narrative of the movie is the character: In einem Jahr mit dreizehn Monden (1978) - The narrativ is without distance the character Mon oncle d'Amérique (1980) - The narrative is the non-relationships between the characters, that becomes a relationship only in the mind of the viewer, as the narrativ Exotica… (1994) - The narrativ is the believe or cult of exchange that drives market forces and sexual temptation at the same time secretly and unconsciously and so also without distance all characters as the same simple but hidden game of life, called the “allure of the other“ as “exotic“ believe as reality as body, or commodity, instead of the pure mind.
