Despair

A film set in Berlin at the start of the 1930s. Hermann Hermann owns a chocolate factory. A Russian émigré, his business is failing, he is at odds with his wife and increasingly feels he is watching himself from outside. In one scene he steps out of his body and looks at himself from the corner of the room. One day he sees a man in the street and decides they are identical. The man is unemployed, a traveller; in fact they look nothing alike and the viewer can see it. Hermann makes a plan. He will put the man in his place, insurance money will be paid and he will live under another identity. Carrying it out is the second half. At every stage his grasp of reality slips further and he takes it for a triumph. The country is changing in the background: uniforms multiply in the streets, the signs change and nobody looks. The source is Vladimir Nabokov's novel. Tom Stoppard wrote the screenplay and the film was shot in English. Dirk Bogarde plays Hermann. Andréa Ferréol and Klaus Löwitsch are in the cast. Rainer Werner Fassbinder directed. It was among his most expensive productions and the first time he worked with an international cast. An interesting production for anyone who likes literary adaptation and narratives built on identity. For a viewer expecting a straight thriller, the film is deliberately cold and blocks identification with its character.