The only thing I did wrong was to yearn for someone to caress me and kiss me.
For the second time this month the moon is full, which is what people mean when they talk about a blue moon. It also happens to be the thirteenth full moon this year, so instead of watching yet another werewolf movie, today I went with Rainer Werner Fassbinder's 1978 drama In a Year with 13 Moons, which I had to get through Netflix. Of course, Fassbinder was referring to a year in which there are 13 new moons (when, according to the captions that open the film, "inescapable personal tragedies may occur"), but that won't happen again until 2011, so I bit the bullet and, as a result, I have finally seen my first Fassbinder film. Rest assured, it will not be my last.
I don't know if this is always the case, but on this film Fassbinder wore many, many hats. In addition to writing and directing, he also produced, photographed and co-edited the film, plus he did the art direction and dubbed the voice of one of the actors. (Now that's what I call multitasking.) About the only thing he didn't do was play the leading role. That job he left to Volker Spengler, who plays the transgendered Elvira (formerly Erwin), who we first meet in a park dressed like a man and trying to pick up a man -- and getting beat up for her trouble. And that's only the beginning for poor Spengler, whose abusive lover (Karl Scheydt) walks out on her for good, leaving her an emotional wreck capable of doing just about anything.
Throughout the film, which takes place over the course of a month, Spengler is consoled by her prostitute neighbor (Ingrid Caven), to whom she spills her whole backstory (during a trip to a slaughterhouse of all places), is confronted by her former wife (Elisabeth Trissenaar), who is concerned for their daughter's safety since Spengler gave an interview about the man (Gottfried John) she changed her sex for, and visits the orphanage where she grew up to get the lowdown from one of the nuns (Lilo Pempeit) about her unhappy childhood (which she doesn't remember at all). She also sneaks into John's office building and watches a man hang himself on the floor below his, and has to give a password to John's chauffeur (Günther Kaufmann) before she can see him. As it turns out, John isn't angry at all about the interview, but his continual failure to understand what he means to her ultimately spells Spengler's doom. One of her last acts is to cut her hair, dress like a man again and try to make a connection with her teenage daughter (Eva Mattes), but try as she might there's just no going back. Like a lot of things in Spengler's life, once they're severed, they're gone for good.