"…in the last analysis terrorism is an idea generated by capitalism to justify better defense measures to safeguard capitalism."
Rainer Werner Fassbinder
-summing up the theme of his film, The Third Generation.
The Third Generation is my first experience with Rainer Werner Fassbinder. I realize that this makes me look uneducated as a film critic. I will be the first to admit that I still have much to see, and I fully expect that my perspective of cinema has many stages to go through yet. Perhaps my latest phase will be inspired by the works of Fassbinder and Yasuzo Masumura.
Saying all of this, you have to realize that I am coming at The Third Generation with no previous knowledge of Fassbinder's work, so I can not comment on it in respects to the grand scheme of his filmography. I also was not conscious at the time of this picture's release, so I am likewise blind to its era significance. These would be things that I would normally comment on in a regular review, but this time I am left with no background to prop my statements. Discussing this film will be much more difficult without said knowledge.
I will attempt to do so anyway, for I believe this to be a beginning of something important to me. Much like when I saw Imitation of Life or Freeway for the first time, and it made me go seek out other works from their respective directors, The Third Generation inspires me to look for more Fassbinder.
Aside from his reputation, I am interested in the decidedly cynical tone he takes with The Third Generation. He is dealing with material as sensitive as organized terrorism, and he chooses to do so with open disdain of society in general (he takes neither the side of the government, nor the terrorists), instead of playing good guys versus bad guys. He openly mocks the empty symbolism and the tactics of the terrorist group, as they are disorganized and only occasionally passionate about their cause; not to neglect to mention how every time they actually manage to attempt something, it ends up hurting only themselves. They spend most of their time waxing empty philosophy and experimenting with various drugs; and the film spends most of its time watching them. But, Fassbinder comes at his material sharing the contempt of his terrorists for modern capitalist society; and while capitalism is ultimately the victor, he still mocks its strategy and attitude towards its attack.
In the end, I think Fassbinder finds his incursion on contemporary social order (I will say “contemporary” because the ideas are still applicable today) with this picture to be a far more effective method than terrorism to stress his ideals. This is all subjective material, but I tend to agree with him. Unlike Alexander Payne's non-committal stance on abortion with Citizen Ruth, Fassbinder actually has very clear opinions, and he stresses them here with equal clarity.
