Berlin Alexanderplatz, Episodes 12 and 13

Episode 12, The Serpent in the Soul of the Serpent:
This episode starts with Franz taking Meize to the bar, ominously telling the bartender that she insisted she it "once before she dies." He is joking. Reinhold spies Meize and decides he must steal her from Franz. There's a biblical allusion in the title of this episode and the title-card is shown over Reinhold whispering into Meck's ear, strongly resembling a serpent. Reinhold seems to bear a colossal grudge against Franz for not taking revenge for his arm. Reinhold is seemingly consumed by guilt and has retreated into the comforting role of villain. There's possibly a moralistic allegory here I've missed.

Anyway, Meck, you recall, is Franz's one-time friend who abandoned him and stole his then-girlfriend. He sets up a meeting with Meize under the guise of telling her about Franz's past. She tells Franz she has another client and will be gone for a while. On the trip she is sweet and childish but becomes icy and adult when she sees Reinhold. Reinhold inveigles her into taking a walk with him in the woods where she and Franz had recently laughed. On the walk, she plays a complex game of withholding affection, granting it, becoming childish, becoming hard. Reinhold does his usual thing of being cruel and brutal, pushing her head into his chest and squeezing the breath out of her.

While this goes on, the narrator talks of slaughtering animals and recites Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, repeating the bit about "A time to be born, and a time to die, a time to plant, and a time to reap that which is planted" twice. Reinhold reveals he has a tattoo of an anvil on his chest. He claims it's his family crest and Meize interprets this (correctly by my judgment) as meaning that he gives out "poundings" (if you know what I mean.) The symbolism of the anvil suggests a strengthening, purifying force, however, which I find speaks distasteful volumes about his mindset.

At last, after much attack, feint, and counter-attack, Reinhold finally tells Meize that he's responsible for Franz's arm (which is his fault, I had misunderstood what went on back in episode 5 or so.) Meize begins shrieking "help" and "murder" until Reinhold strangles her. The episode ends with her lying on the forest floor, seemingly dead. I believe Reinhold did this thing mainly to get back at Franz in some sense. The narrator talks of revenge being the most destructive force which neatly sums up the preceding and promises further fireworks to come.

Episode 13, The Outside and the Inside and the Secret of Fear of the Secret
Meize is dead. The episode opens on the grotesque image of Franz in Meize's clothing, lipstick smeared clowinshly over his face. He is convinced she has run out on him. Eva visits to comfort him and reveals she is pregnant with his child. Franz goes to woods where Meize was killed and calls for her. He wistfully says to himself that Meize really deserves a "whole" man. After this, Franz visits the fruit-gang where they vote on whether to oust the leader of the gang or not. The leader laughs at this idea. Shades of a dictatorship?

Meck's hand is burned during a failed heist, prompting Reinhold to mock him. As Franz is bandaging his hand, Meck warns Franz that Reinhold is a bastard but Franz bristles at this idea. The narrator informs us that Franz only loves two people: Meize and Reinhold. But Reinhold's cruelty has either pricked Meck's conscience or his pride and so he goes to the police about Meize's murder. The police dig her up from the woods where her corpse sparkles like a modern vampire. I think the image is meant to be incongruously pretty, as though she were a princess waiting to be woken by a kiss. Very odd.

Eva shows up at Franz's apartment which has degenerated into a hoarders-style mess. She tells him about Eva's body and that the police think he, Franz, is to blame. Franz goes into shock, relief at the fact that Meize didn't dump him after all floods his mind and he laughs hysterically. Finally he stops laughing and, while talking of death, fishes the bird out of its cage and absentmindedly crushes it in his fist. Clearly, Franz has lost his reason and his soul. The bird in the cage was not meant to represent a canary in a mine-shaft or a captive woman or man, but the human soul. I fear I've missed the mark on this show by a wide margin!

I've allowed my association of Germany with The War to completely overwhelm my analytical tools. The show is really most interested in Franz's slow but inevitable fall from grace. Most of it's allusions therefore are biblical and moral, equating people with animals being lead to slaughter, using the indigent as a symbol of man struggling to be good in a world where that is not easy, indeed almost impossible. There is a certain perverse delight to be had in watching a not-so-great man fail, but of course this is schadenfreude of the ugliest sort and must be avoided. The episode ends with a text-card, claiming that it is time for Franz to be destroyed "He is finished."

One last episode to go!