Der Bauer von Babylon

Schidor observed Fassbinder while shooting his last film, Querelle. This is an attempt at getting closer to Rainer Werner Fassbinder. The portrait is completed by interviews with Jeanne Moreau, Brad Davis and Franco Nero. "l had read the script of Querelle and had driven out to see the shooting in Haselhorst. Crumbling industrial architecture, building timber, ramps, puddles, bushes - the kind of landscape I know is my kind. Inside, Zehetbauer's incredible, theatrical construction. Again that feeling of relatedness, hut at the same time rejection : this time he had gone too far, it could not turn out wel!. When I saw the first two roles in the first version, I was sure straight away - this was going to be his best film. What he had always talked about, his major theme, his thing - at last he had hit it spot-on, in these pictures of razor-sharp articiality, it could not be more simple, more convincing."
(Christian Enzensberger)