Beware Of A Holy Whore

The cast and crew of a German film company is stuck at a Spanish seaside hotel waiting to begin production. The producer has run out of money and his last check has bounced, leaving them without film and other material. While everyone waits for the director to show up, they spend most of their time getting drunk at the hotel bar, having fights, and sleeping with one another, regardless of sex. Jeff (Lou Castel), the director, finally arrives and immediately berates his production manager, Sasha (Rainer Werner Fassbinder), for choosing a cheap villa when he wanted a castle. He then slaps an actress and has her fired when she claims he promised to marry her. After sleeping with a male technician, Jeff plans the next day's shoot with the director of photography. The film's leading man, Eddie (Eddie Constantine), spends the night with Hanna (Hanna Schygulla), one of the actresses. Jeff tries to start shooting the next day, but the actors don't know their lines, the set isn't ready, and there are other technical problems. Jeff decides he doesn't really want to make the movie after all and drinks one Cuba libre after another, smashing the glasses on the floor. The rest of the company join him and they all get drunk and have a wild party, abandoning the film completely.

BEWARE OF A HOLY WHORE is a highly convincing and believable portrait of boredom and ennui, yet this proves to be mixed blessing, since two hours of ennui is not exactly enlightening. It has the fascination of a snake pit, yet it would be hard to call it entertaining. Based on Fassbinder's frustrating experiences of filming WHITY in Spain, the story is not really about moviemaking, the way CONTEMPT (1963) or DAY FOR NIGHT (1973) are. Rather, it's about the sexual and psychological entanglements which arise out of any situation where people are thrown together, and as always with Fassbinder, the damage that humans inflict upon each other. Although Fassbinder plays the abusive production manager, his real alter ego in the film is the director Jeff, who wears Fassbinder's real black-leather jacket, and treats everyone with utter viciousness and disgust. He sleeps with both men and women, then kicks them out of his bed. He fires lovers, screams and smashes things, and generally behaves like an egomaniacal, petulant child. Fassbinder puts himself at the top of the list in his idictment of humanity, even ending the film with a quote by Thomas Mann: "And I say to you that I am weary to death of depicting humanity without partaking of humanity." (Violence, nudity, adult situations.) leave a comment