Review of Fox and His Friends (1975) by Adrian S — 24 Aug 2008

It must be over 30 years since the first (and, until now, last) time I saw this. I had only very vague memories of it but I knew that there was something special and powerful about it that etched the name of Fassbinder somewhere deep within me.

So, it was with the trepidation of revisiting a, barely understood but cherished, moment of my personal history that I went to see it again. Now though, seeing it again, I can better put it in place and recognise what I saw then but did not have the knowledge to understand.

It would seem that part of Fassbinder's genius was to use very straight-forward and on their own quite ordinary situations to tell bold and powerful stories that even today many mainstream film-makers dare not.

Who today could tell a story of social inequality and exploitation with an entirely gay cast of characters? And not just gay, but clearly, obviously, and explicitly gay. And then treat their sexuality an almost entirely irrelevant to the story he is telling. For all their significance films like Brokeback Mountain are still asking if it's OK to put gay characters on the big screen. Yet, over 30 years ago, Fassbinder was showing us that the lives of gay men and women are much the same as straight men and women. The weak and the innocent will be used and spat out by the powerful, that you ignore old friends at your peril.

As tragic a tale as this is, as bleak and inevitable as Fox's decline becomes this film is as a clear a statement as you could want that petty differences like colour, gender, sexuality, nationality, etc., etc., are nothing more than symbols to be used by the rich and powerful to control and crush those they see as little more than chattel.

A powerful and affecting film of a maturity that is still years ahead of Hollywood.