The Merchant of Four Seasons
Encyclopedia
The Merchant of Four Seasons is a 1971 West German film written and directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder
, starring Hans Hirschmueller and Irm Hermann
. The plot follows the life of a fruit-peddler, living in 1950s West Germany, who is driven over the edge by an uncaring society.
The title apparently derives from the phases of Hans' life whose merchandise goods are seasonally defined. The film explores issues of class prejudices, domestic violence, infidelity, family discord, depression and self-destructive behavior.
Hans is now a fruit-peddler, calling out his products and diligently making his rounds through the residential streets. Short and stocky, he is married to the slim and much taller Irmgard, who helps him with his work. They have a small daughter, Renate. One day Hans sells some fruit to an attractive married woman in an apartment building. She asks him to deliver the pears in person and invites him in, but he refuses, saying some other time. The woman is in fact the great love in Hans’s life since his youth. When the suspicious Irmgard questions why it took so long, he escapes her incessant complaints by abandoning his cart and going into a nearby bar. Soon, the sad ritual of his empty existence emerges: arguing with his wife, drinking excessively, lamenting lost personal and professional opportunities. While in the bar, Hans gets sentimental about his golden days as a policeman. In a flashback, he recalls how one day he brought a prostitute to the police station to take a statement, but she lured him into having sex. Caught by his superior, this incident ended his career as a policeman.
Irmgard appears at the bar to fetch him, but Hans says that he will come home when he wants to. When his wife does not disappear fast enough, he throws a chair at her. Finally Hans comes home, drunk. Irmgard calls him a pig and he beats her up in front of their little daughter. The next morning Irmgard has disappeared and Hans is desperate.
Irmgard, fleeing with Renate, finds support with Hans’s family. His contemptuous bourgeois mother has always disdained Hans, as she favors her obedient married daughter Heidi and tolerates her outspoken college student daughter, Anna. When Hans once dreamed of being a mechanic, his mother demanded that he keep on studying and did not like that he would take a job in which he would get his hands dirty. Irmgard complains to her in-laws that Hans had attacked her the night before. Heidi and her husband agree with the mother that Hans has always been a good-for-nothing. Anna is the only one in the family sympathetic to him, saying that they had always despised him and never given him a proper chance. When Hans arrives, he tries to reconcile with his wife, but Irmgard retreats to a corner of the living room screaming in terror while the virtuous brother-in-law stands in front of her. The two men struggle while Irmgard telephones a lawyer, saying she wants a divorce. When she puts down the receiver, Hans begins to sing his favorite tune: Buona, buona notte, you can’t have everything you want”. Then he has a heart attack.
While Hans is recuperating in a hospital bed, his wife lets herself be picked up by a man in the street and takes him home to bed. But her little daughter catches them having sex. At the hospital, Hans and his wife reconcile; she promises to stay with him. Once he is back home, as they are about to sleep with one another, Irmgard explains that sometimes she finds him funny because he is much shorter than she is and that she had only become interested in him in the first place because he was so comical.
After his heart attack, the fruit merchant can neither work nor drink, so Irmgard takes a larger role in the business. No longer able to push the cart around, Hans hires a hard-working and honest assistant, Anzell. He is the same man with whom, unknown to Hans, Irmgard had the brief affair during his hospitalization. Fearing exposure of her indiscretion, she manipulates Anzell into overpricing the produce and afterwards sharing the little extra earnings with her. He agrees, but Irmgard knows very well that he will be found out, because her husband spies on Anzell when he goes through the courtyards. It happens as she has planned and Anzell is fired in disgrace, but he reveals Irmgard's deception to Hans.
While dining with a friend, Hans is reunited with Harry, a close friend from his years in the Foreign Legion who is now waiting on tables, and immediately offers him a job. Soon Hans suggests to his wife that Harry move in with them. She protests, but Hans imposes his will. Harry proves to be an industrious worker who now takes the cart through the streets. Irmgard tends a fruit stand while Hans sulks with too much time on his hands. However, though Harry's professionalism and dedication bring Hans's business venture into profitability and success, they also render Hans obsolete in his own life, leading him further into isolation and despair.
In his depression, Hans revisits the great love of his life. In his youth, he courted her with an armful of red roses, but she turned him down, because her parents did not want her to marry a mere fruit seller. Now, though she is married to someone else, she undresses for casual sex, but he has not come just for sex and goes away again. When Hans visits Anna, his favorite sister, she is busy with her studies and has no time for him.
The doctor has told him that large quantities of alcohol would be fatal for him because of his bad heart, and in the end he decides quite deliberately to go to the pub. While drinking, he remembers an incident when he was in the Foreign Legion in Morocco. Captured and tortured by an Arab, he was saved by his comrades at the last minute, although he really wanted to die. Like then, Hans no longer wishes to live. At a grand family dinner, he downs a few dozen shots of liquor, which promptly kill him on the spot. After the funeral, Harry agrees to wed Irmgard and takes up the life that was meant for Hans.
website it has a 92% 'fresh' rating.
in the U.S.A. on July 9 2002 in German
with English
subtitles.
Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Rainer Werner Maria Fassbinder was a German movie director, screenwriter and actor. He is considered one of the most important representatives of the New German Cinema.He maintained a frenetic pace in film-making...
, starring Hans Hirschmueller and Irm Hermann
Irm Hermann
-Biography:Hermann became a publishing clerk after finishing school and worked as a secretary for ADAC when she met Rainer Werner Fassbinder in 1966, who convinced her to quit her job to work with him, despite her lack of formal training as an actor...
. The plot follows the life of a fruit-peddler, living in 1950s West Germany, who is driven over the edge by an uncaring society.
The title apparently derives from the phases of Hans' life whose merchandise goods are seasonally defined. The film explores issues of class prejudices, domestic violence, infidelity, family discord, depression and self-destructive behavior.
Plot
Hans, an ordinary but likable man, returns home after spending several years in the French Foreign Legion. He is berated by his mother ("The good die young, and people like you come back", she says after hearing about the death of the young friend Hans had taken into the army with him).Hans is now a fruit-peddler, calling out his products and diligently making his rounds through the residential streets. Short and stocky, he is married to the slim and much taller Irmgard, who helps him with his work. They have a small daughter, Renate. One day Hans sells some fruit to an attractive married woman in an apartment building. She asks him to deliver the pears in person and invites him in, but he refuses, saying some other time. The woman is in fact the great love in Hans’s life since his youth. When the suspicious Irmgard questions why it took so long, he escapes her incessant complaints by abandoning his cart and going into a nearby bar. Soon, the sad ritual of his empty existence emerges: arguing with his wife, drinking excessively, lamenting lost personal and professional opportunities. While in the bar, Hans gets sentimental about his golden days as a policeman. In a flashback, he recalls how one day he brought a prostitute to the police station to take a statement, but she lured him into having sex. Caught by his superior, this incident ended his career as a policeman.
Irmgard appears at the bar to fetch him, but Hans says that he will come home when he wants to. When his wife does not disappear fast enough, he throws a chair at her. Finally Hans comes home, drunk. Irmgard calls him a pig and he beats her up in front of their little daughter. The next morning Irmgard has disappeared and Hans is desperate.
Irmgard, fleeing with Renate, finds support with Hans’s family. His contemptuous bourgeois mother has always disdained Hans, as she favors her obedient married daughter Heidi and tolerates her outspoken college student daughter, Anna. When Hans once dreamed of being a mechanic, his mother demanded that he keep on studying and did not like that he would take a job in which he would get his hands dirty. Irmgard complains to her in-laws that Hans had attacked her the night before. Heidi and her husband agree with the mother that Hans has always been a good-for-nothing. Anna is the only one in the family sympathetic to him, saying that they had always despised him and never given him a proper chance. When Hans arrives, he tries to reconcile with his wife, but Irmgard retreats to a corner of the living room screaming in terror while the virtuous brother-in-law stands in front of her. The two men struggle while Irmgard telephones a lawyer, saying she wants a divorce. When she puts down the receiver, Hans begins to sing his favorite tune: Buona, buona notte, you can’t have everything you want”. Then he has a heart attack.
While Hans is recuperating in a hospital bed, his wife lets herself be picked up by a man in the street and takes him home to bed. But her little daughter catches them having sex. At the hospital, Hans and his wife reconcile; she promises to stay with him. Once he is back home, as they are about to sleep with one another, Irmgard explains that sometimes she finds him funny because he is much shorter than she is and that she had only become interested in him in the first place because he was so comical.
After his heart attack, the fruit merchant can neither work nor drink, so Irmgard takes a larger role in the business. No longer able to push the cart around, Hans hires a hard-working and honest assistant, Anzell. He is the same man with whom, unknown to Hans, Irmgard had the brief affair during his hospitalization. Fearing exposure of her indiscretion, she manipulates Anzell into overpricing the produce and afterwards sharing the little extra earnings with her. He agrees, but Irmgard knows very well that he will be found out, because her husband spies on Anzell when he goes through the courtyards. It happens as she has planned and Anzell is fired in disgrace, but he reveals Irmgard's deception to Hans.
While dining with a friend, Hans is reunited with Harry, a close friend from his years in the Foreign Legion who is now waiting on tables, and immediately offers him a job. Soon Hans suggests to his wife that Harry move in with them. She protests, but Hans imposes his will. Harry proves to be an industrious worker who now takes the cart through the streets. Irmgard tends a fruit stand while Hans sulks with too much time on his hands. However, though Harry's professionalism and dedication bring Hans's business venture into profitability and success, they also render Hans obsolete in his own life, leading him further into isolation and despair.
In his depression, Hans revisits the great love of his life. In his youth, he courted her with an armful of red roses, but she turned him down, because her parents did not want her to marry a mere fruit seller. Now, though she is married to someone else, she undresses for casual sex, but he has not come just for sex and goes away again. When Hans visits Anna, his favorite sister, she is busy with her studies and has no time for him.
The doctor has told him that large quantities of alcohol would be fatal for him because of his bad heart, and in the end he decides quite deliberately to go to the pub. While drinking, he remembers an incident when he was in the Foreign Legion in Morocco. Captured and tortured by an Arab, he was saved by his comrades at the last minute, although he really wanted to die. Like then, Hans no longer wishes to live. At a grand family dinner, he downs a few dozen shots of liquor, which promptly kill him on the spot. After the funeral, Harry agrees to wed Irmgard and takes up the life that was meant for Hans.
Cast
- Hans Hirschmueller – Hans Epp
- Irm HermannIrm Hermann-Biography:Hermann became a publishing clerk after finishing school and worked as a secretary for ADAC when she met Rainer Werner Fassbinder in 1966, who convinced her to quit her job to work with him, despite her lack of formal training as an actor...
- Irmgard - Hanna SchygullaHanna SchygullaHanna Schygulla is a German actress and chanson singer. She is generally considered the most prominent German actress of the New German Cinema.-Life and career:Schygulla was born in Königshütte, Upper Silesia,...
– Anna - Klaus LöwitschKlaus LöwitschKlaus Löwitsch was a German actor, best known in Germany for his starring role in the television detective series Peter Strohm....
- Harry - Karl Scheydt - Anzell
- Andrea Schober – Renate, Hans’s daughter
- Kurt RaabKurt RaabKurt Raab was a West German stage and film actor, as well as a screenwriter and playwright. Raab is best remembered for his work with cult German film director, Rainer Werner Fassbinder with whom he collaborated on 31 film projects.-Biography:Raab was born in Bergreichenstein, Sudetenland, what is...
- Kurt, Hans’s brother-in-law - Ingrid CavenIngrid CavenIngrid Caven is a German film actress and singer. Her younger sister Trudeliese Schmidt was an opera singer and also an actress.Caven has appeared in over 50 films since her film debut in 1969 in the short film...
– Hans’s great love - Gusti Kreissl - Hans’s mother
- Heide Simon – Heide, Hans's married sister
Reception
The Merchant of Four Seasons was a turning point in Fassbinder's career, marking his entry into the international film arena. It is considered by film critics to be one of Fassbinder's best films. At the Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
website it has a 92% 'fresh' rating.
DVD release
The film was released on DVDDVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
in the U.S.A. on July 9 2002 in German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
with English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
subtitles.