Beware of a Holy Whore

Beware of a Holy Whore (Warnung vor einer heiligen Nutte), directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, is a German film about a film crew stuck waiting in a Spanish hotel because their director and lead actor haven't arrived, filling the time with drinking, fighting, and mounting tension. The film draws directly on the troubled production of Fassbinder's own previous film, Whity, shot the year before; the interpersonal conflicts and logistical frustrations from that set quickly shaped the script. Fassbinder both wrote his own director alter ego into the film, played by Lou Castel as Jeff, and appeared on camera himself as the production manager; the rest of the cast is drawn from the real members of his own "antiteater" collective. Though set fictionally in Spain, the film was actually shot in a hotel in Sorrento, Italy. Fassbinder named it as his own favorite among his works. Who it's for: anyone curious about a director turning the chaotic production of his own previous film into an autobiographical German film, cast with his own real collective. Who it's not for: those wanting a film with a clear plot, since this unfolds largely in a hotel lobby, centered on waiting and mounting tension itself.