The Marraige of Maria Braun
1979
Rainer Maria Fassbinder
Maria Braun is on the bed with her lover, a black American soldier, when her long lost husband Hermann walks into the room. Hermann is a former Nazi officer married to Maria during the last days of the Third Reich. Maria (Hanna Schygulla) looks up, smiles and quietly says, "Hermann." She is happy to see him, yet remains gently between the two men. She neither rejects nor embraces either. Her strength of character is something to envy - the ability to accept oneself so completely. She embraces all of herself at once - her true love and her present lover - apologizing to nor for either.
The film is part of Fassbinder's BRD Trilogy. As Maria Braun symbolized the Bundes Republik der Deutschland, this moment serves as a perfect symbol of then West Germany caught between its Nazi past and its US Armed Forces occupation.
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