Mother Küsters Goes to Heaven

A Fassbinder film set in Germany. Frau Kusters is the wife of a factory worker. While preparing an ordinary evening the news arrives: her husband has killed a manager at the plant and then killed himself. She does not understand it. She knew her husband; he was not a man who would do such a thing, and she wants to know why. After that everyone starts using her. First come the journalists; one woman behaves as though she cares, and the piece she writes presents the husband as a monster. Then her daughter arrives. A singer, she uses the attention the case has created for her own career. Then members of the communist party come. They take her to meetings, have her speak and tie the case to the question of the working class. After a while she sees that this is a use as well. Finally a group of anarchists arrives and proposes direct action. What the film describes is whom grief serves: everyone wants to add her mourning to their own programme and nobody asks why her husband died. Brigitte Mira plays Frau Kusters. Ingrid Caven, Margit Carstensen and Karlheinz Böhm are in the cast. Rainer Werner Fassbinder directed. The film has two different endings; separate cuts were made for Germany and America. A strong production for anyone who likes German cinema and political satire. For a viewer expecting a warm narrative, the film pities nobody and keeps its distance.