Watched in the Arte Media Library

This is not a film. This is a condition. Accordingly, director Oskar Roehler remains true to himself in this case, too, when it comes to delving into the demon-stricken soul of a tormented genius whose inspiration and pain ultimately germinated equally from the fact that he understood every second of his life as a film. The fact that "Entfant Terrible" is about Rainer Werner Fassbinder makes the whole matter a bit more complicated. Oskar Roehler is certainly capable of recognizing the flip side of longing as suffering, but the only things that remain are clichés and myths with which the emotional dictator Fassbinder is approached here.

Whether Oskar Roehler was the right filmmaker to take on Rainer Werner Fassbinder should be left open at this point, even if the answer is probably rather negative. Oskar Roehler, however, succeeds in creating a seething, sweaty sense of how creative passion gradually coagulates into self-destructive obsession. "Entfant Terrible" is a strange, a fascinating film. Roehler refuses to be biographically accurate, negotiates historical points of reference on an anecdotal level, and at times indulges in a boisterous, uninhibited smear theater, in which Oliver Masucci, with his bulging belly, greasy hair, sticky walrus beard, and too-small leather jacket, puts on a self-sacrificing sensational performance.

If you will, it is Oliver Masucci who declares "Enfant Terrible" to be exhibition cinema of the at times outrageous kind. For, as already said, Oskar Roehler is not interested in taking a fresh look at what is probably the most important director of post-war Germany. Roehler erects a monument to the raving, coke-snorting, boozing, fucking, excessive Rainer Werner Fassbinder - and thus remains faithful to the image of him that we have repeatedly been transported by the public. Subtle nuances are mostly sought in vain, but this myth-making machinery, which focuses specifically on the repulsive sides of this luminary of cinema, remains a challenging, yet at its core deeply tragic viewing experience that dares to counteract in an untidy, eccentric and chaotic way what classic biopics have always been about. There is nothing generic about "Entfant Terrible".