When younger/Love is Colder Than Death

When younger (especially around 17-18) I was pretty caught up with coming off as insane. I was plagued by something, not a full blown anxiety, but a recurring self-questioning. In hindsight it is sort of silly, but grounded in some sort of truth. I would just look at the situation I was in (generally while at work as a bag boy at the grocery store or while out with friends, generally while I was alone) and wonder how I could know that I was not totally insane and the world around me was an illusion/delusion). It was not so intense as to paralyze me or really change my behavior much, but it was always in the back of my head.

Not only did I question my apparent sanity, I think I assumed that I probably was totally insane at points. Like I just figured that the base hypothesis had to be that the world that I lived in was an illusion and a lie and I was really a raving maniac detached from reality. Or something like that. Again, it does not really make sense now, but at the time it seemed logical.

I think it gave me a bit of an edge. It made me act 'extra sane' or at least try to, in order to compensate for my assumed insanity. In reality a lot of this stemmed from a very basic misunderstanding of what mental illness was and how it worked. I think if I had even a basic awareness of what schizophrenia looked like or expressed itself I would have lost this problem pretty quickly. If anything it probably stemmed from a movie I saw or a book I read that used this as a plot point and as I learned more about mental illness this faded pretty quickly.

But it is almost a shame. I never worry about this any more. It is a totally irrational fear or consideration but it never comes to mind. And it makes me wonder.

I saw my first Fassbinder film last night. His first, 'Love is a Thing Colder than Death'. I was a little underwhelmed at first, but then it picks up and you can see these glimmers of brilliance in it, especially considering it was his first film. Fassbinder himself is a brilliant actor, pretty understated and clever. I mean the plot itself is pretty pointless, but there are all these little things that set it aside. For instance it is amazing how the characters are so uniquely shitty. There are all these rote routes that he could have gone down to display their cruelty and brutality, but they are always sort of surprising and unique. The scene where Johanna is lying on the floor and Bruno comes over to her and tries to kiss her. What a strange scene. She just sits there with her head cocked (like a Renaissance painting, like a Madonna or something) and he comes over to her and stands over her and, he doesn't kick her but just sort of pressed his foot against her side for a moment, what is he even doing? then he lays down next to her. It is all this dance, sort of, choreographed like two animals, and then he tries to kiss here and she laughs. And here, Bruno, this guy who killed two people, who killed his own father in cold blood just does nothing, just sort of defeated by the power of this woman. And then she goes over to Franz, and when he slaps her and she asks why he says 'You laughed at Bruno...and Bruno is my friend." I mean this dude slaps his own long term girl friend because she laughed in the face of a man he men only recently while he was coming on to her. You watch this scene and your mind just gets scrambled. What kind of ass backwards world does Franz live in? What sort of bizzare rules does he even follow? This might even be the most dialogue we get out of him, and yet it says maybe more than anything in the film. This dude is just a total nut, nothing that goes on within or around him makes any sense,

The one scene holds the movie together, I think.

The scene when they are in the store that sells glasses is pretty brilliant as well. Sort of a dark take on physical comedy. It is all very serious, but has the sort of pacing and clever quick thinking activity that you would see in like some 40's comedy routine.