Episode 8, The Sun Warms the Skin, but Burns it Sometimes Too:
I think I have to give up on the idea of Franz as Berlin-symbol. Nothing Nazi-ish has manifested and no heavy-handed metaphors about oppression have appeared, so I guess I need to give up on that lead. New theory: this show follows Franz's struggle to stay straight and clean, in a legal and moral sense. This would explain the repeated images of birds in cages, and also the fickle nature of women (who are mostly prostitutes, selling their affection on the fringes of legality.) and it also renders some stuff a little less comprehensible (for example, I thought the Berlin=Franz paradigm was a good way to view the alcoholism episode. Then again, maybe it could be equally fruitfully viewed as Franz struggling with vice.) Well, on to the episode.
Franz struggles to come to grips with his lost arm. In the last episode, he was utterly morose about it, dejectedly drinking himself into stupors and listening to sharp-dressed men talk of the arbitrary cruelty of the world and the subjectivity of morality. At the start of this episode, Franz indulges in cruel gallows humor, laughing uproariously at a news story about a father who drowned his own children. He further exercises his pessimism by insisting that the father is sleeping soundly in prison, and is not gnawed at by his conscience. Later, at his apartment, he is visited by the sharp-dressed man from the last episode. The man offers him a job as a fence for stolen goods. Franz agrees almost instantly. We then flash forward a bit and find Franz successful in his new job which is conducted entirely off-screen.
Franz is visited by Eva. Eva congratulates him on being so up-beat and successful despite his lost arm and dances with him, miming as though she were holding on to his absent hand. He is hurt and retires from the dance. Eva than offers him a prostitute to "own". She is a pretty woman who behaves sweetly and childishly. She talks about her "stage" name vs her real name. One day she adopted a new name and then, she simply concludes, that was her name. Franz names her Mieze. There's an oblique lesson for Franz here, I think, that he can choose, to an extent, his own fate and can choose to let his handicap define and limit him or he can rise above it. There is a scene of him rowing a rowboat with one arm. It's pathetic but also kind of hopeful.
The episode ends with a minor incident where Mieze receives a love letter which sends Franz into a jealous rage. The footage of him beating his old girlfriend to death is played over dense narration. He contacts Eva who first confirms that Mieze is not actually cheating on Franz, and then comforts Franz. The episode ends with Eva and Franz talking.
There's a lot of text in this episode. Several times bricks of text are presented like title-cards. This show is based on a novel, we know from the credits, and these passages may require too much set-up for too little pay-off to actually film. It's much better than obtrusive and incongruent narration, which this show seems to prefer. Ah well, on to the next episode.
Episode 9, About the Eternities Between the Many and the Few:
Well, well, oh me of little faith! The Germany=Franz equation returns to prominence! First, though, the rough plot: We open with a re-showing of the beating-to-death scene, played over a dense narration of airplanes and electric street cars. Following this, Fritz makes up with Mieze, bringing her flowers and picking her up from her street corner. The music becomes ominous and the camera zooms in on the wilting flowers, undercutting an otherwise kind of sweet moment. Franz visits Reinhold who is wracked with resentful guilt at the sight of Franz. He asks to see the amputated stump and we viewers are treated to a bit of grotesque imagery. Reinhold accuses Franz of coming for revenge, but Franz reveals that he will not exact any revenge, not out of nobility, but out of cowardice.
Back at home, Franz adores Meize as she shines his shoes. She puts them on his feet and gives her a mighty chomp. She returns his bite with a kiss. Maybe she can redeem him? The sharp-dressed man shoes up and they go to the bar. The bartender lectures Franz on falling right back into his life of crime, pimping and fencing stolen goods. For the second time in one episode (!) the beating-to-death scene plays, this time over narration about the sacrifice of Isaac, the narrator becoming breathy and gasping, suggesting a perhaps erotic undertone.
This flashback done, Franz retorts that he has exhausted every legal avenue of honest work. As the German society had tried to make democracy re-function, ladies and gentlemen, so too has Franz tried to live an honest life! Ah, the German=Franz equation holds true once more! They then give me more fodder by actually going to a fascist meeting. Franz, in his role as common man, fantasizes about sex while listening to flattering half-logic about how fascism will accelerate the promises of the communists for the working man and that also communists are promising impossible things. Franz claps while imagining Eva licking the fingers of his missing hand.
After the meeting, Franz lectures some old man about how stupid the current economic system is. He cheerfully admits to a life of crime which somehow sticks it to the powers that be and sneers at the old man's suggestion for strikes. To underscore his weird, regressive, childish cynicism, he does all of this while swinging on some kind of indoor playground. He then goes to Eva's to lecture her incoherently about the virtues of fascism. He drinks steadily as the episode ends.
Franz seems to be sinking into some kind of ironic pessimism, where he out-grumps everyone's world view, childishly mistaking people pointing out systemic problems with people just being self-defeatingly cynical. He is ready to embrace any justification, no matter how thin, for his actions. It seems the prophecy at the beginning of the film, with his looking back at the prison, will come true. I wonder if he will manifest as the oppressed or the oppressor when the national socialists come to power. I think/hope exciting times lie ahead!
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