Maria Braun Kickass Female

One of the most interesting things about this film is the treatment of the main character, Maria Braun. She is such a fascinating female role model, and is strong during a time when most are weak. She says everything she does is for her love, so they can be together comfortably, but she is really more of an example of strong female independence. I thought Maria Braun was a fantastic character, she is funny and irreverent, and completely uncompromising in her desires. Rainer Werner Fassbinder was the director and the main writer of the 1979 film, which makes me curious why he chose to center the film on such a character. It is implicitly political, making a statement about the post war culture and the fact that only the women seem to be able to pull through it, probably because they were not directly corrupted by warfare. Yet we see how it affects them right from the beginning when they are getting bombed out of the church as Maria is marrying Hermann, and all while he is gone, everywhere she goes we see devastation. It is about the futility of war, and even though she advances her place in life, and they are just on the verge of happiness, it catches up with them in the end, and her thoughtlessness explodes the house. Fassbinder uses women in this way through most of his films, they are a means to a political end. I have not seen any of his other work, but I still believe Maria, though a bit crazy, is a fantastic example of a strong female in a male dominated world. She uses her feminine charms when necessary, almost like a femme fatale, but to her own ends.