World On A Wire

World on a Wire (Welt Am Draht) (1973)

Runtime: 212 minutes

Directed by: Rainer Werner Fassbinder

Starring: Klaus Lowistch, Barbara Valentin, Mascha Rabben, Karl Heinz Vosgerau, Wolfgang Schneck

From: The greatly named Westdeutsch Rundfunk

I had a busy evening so there's no time to write a lengthy intro. This is my virgin experience with a legendary director, again thanx due to Hulu Plus. I'll return Saturday, likely in the evening; the Letterboxd review is below.

I decided to watch my first Fassbinder film, and as the movie was only restored a few years ago after years of it being almost impossible to find, why not watch this, a 2 part miniseries made for German television? It turns out that this film seemed like an inspiration for several later famous motion pictures.

The plot is sometime in the near future of Germany. One of the creators (Vollmer) of a computer simulation program (Simulacron) dies mysteriously. The other creator (Fred Stiller) moves up the corporate ladder at the place where Simulacron is located at. Weird things begin to happen. A man who works security there (Gunther Lause) vanishes into thin air... and the day after it happens, an important drawing suddenly is gone and Lause's existence is erased, as if he never existed. Stiller tries to figure out what's going on. Part 1 sets up the situation and introduces the characters. The end of that drops the bombshell, the key component of the part. Part 2 is the fallout of that.

The key thing to note is that Simulacron is a program where over 9,000 human beings are created in a simulation world and those beings think their world is real. It's not like The Sims or anything of that sort. People can actually transport themselves into the faux world for a short amount of time and it certainly looks real and the simulations are just like human beings. From the outside, the company can look in and by introducing various factors they can actually predict what can happen in real life up to 20 years in the future; now what could go wrong there? Corporations naturally want a piece of that action. That's supposed to happen later on but one company wants it now. It's only one piece of this puzzle, though.

I won't reveal what the bombshell is, but it's one of several instances where I was reminded of more recent films. I heard that there was a bit used in Inception and the transporting of yourself into another world is Total Recall and of course there's The Matrix with the whole “simulation world that appears real” thing. Tron and Blade Runner are other movies that came to mind. I tell you, Phillip K. Dick was an incredibly influential man in the science fiction world.

The film is odd and at times I did feel the 3 ½ hour length. However, it was certainly well-filmed by the prolific director. I understand that mirror are a common trope for Fassbinder but I highly doubt they were used more often anywhere else than here; they are in the majority of scenes and besides it being something he must have liked it fits into the theme of the movie. Various high concepts and philosophy are brought up, usually well. And all this is done not only with infamous director Ulli Lommel in a key supporting role (I was shocked when I found out who played that character) but in a kitschy early 1970's version of what the future would be, a world that unfortunately did not come true. Shame, as I wish I could have bright orange phones and cowskin-covered office chairs!

This is my first Fassbinder but I know it won't be the last I see from what I understand was a very colorful human being.