MOVIE REVIEWS : ‘EVA’ DAZZLING TRIBUTE TO FASSBINDER

There is not a single reference to R. W. Fassbinder, the enfant terrible of the New German Cinema, in “A Man Like Eva” (at the Nuart through Wednesday). But anyone who knows his work or legend will instantly recognize that it is a dazzling film a clef in honor of the late director, who burned himself out in 1982 at the age of 36.

Director Radu Gabrea and his co-writer Laurens Straub view Fassbinder as a man who created art as he destroyed himself and others, and in contemplating this paradox they have created a paradox of their own: an unflinching study, made with love and respect, of an often hateful, finally tragic individual. By the end of the film they have given both force and their own twist to the quote from Andre Gide with which they begin their picture: “It is better to be hated for what you are than loved for what you are not.”

The film makers, however, are able to love their hero as an artist while revealing him as frequently deserving of hatred as a man.

Even though the film is remarkable in its evocation of the creative process--the most difficult to capture on film--its full meaning and pleasure depend upon a familiarity with Fassbinder’s life and films and the realization that in him often outrageous behavior could yield enduring art. “A Man Called Eva” is perhaps best left to the cognoscenti; be warned, too, that at times it’s pretty brutal.

Those who come to the film cold may not realize that Fassbinder is being played by a woman, the formidable Eva Mattes, who as a teen-ager had the title role in his “Jail Bait” (1972) and appeared in other films for the director.

Along with the inspired casting of Mattes, Gabrea and Straub had the equally fortuitous notion of setting their film during a shooting of “La Dame aux Camelias” (which would have been perfect material for Fassbinder). This allows for the use of the Maria Callas recording of “La Traviata” on the sound track, thus identifying the innate romanticism and doomed fate of Fassbinder with Verdi/Dumas’ dying Marguerite Gautier.

“A Man Like Eva” takes place almost entirely in a fine but decaying old mansion (most likely in Munich) that serves as setting and living quarters for “La Dame’s” cast and crew. Clad always in jeans, leather vest and hat, the bearded “Eva” is a temperamental, self-indulgent tyrant who nonetheless never loses sight of what he wants to capture on film and is so compelling a personality, alternately abusive and nurturing, that he holds his company in his thrall.

He is the kind of person who solves financial problems by setting fire to a pile of bills and collects completion money by sending his devoted assistant (Carola Regnier) out to prostitute herself. But the real crises in the director’s life are emotional: his falling passionately in love with his handsome-but-straight Armand (Werner Stocker) and his cruel neglect of his devoted lover (Charley Muhamed Huber). Perversely, the director is as determined to have the man who does not love him as he is resolute in ignoring the man who does, with disastrous consequences in both instances.

Wisely, Gabrea doesn’t try to emulate Fassbinder’s complex style and goes for a tone more elegiac than campy; beautiful, haunting images and graceful camera movement characterize the entire film. Mattes’ harrowing portrayal of Fassbinder is no feat of makeup but a creation from deep within.

Fassbinder admirers will know that the real-life counterparts of “La Dame’s” Marguerite (Lisa Kreuzer) and Huber are that elegant wanton Ingrid Caven, once briefly married to Fassbinder, and El Hedi Ben Salemi, who was Fassbinder’s ill-fated lover and the star of perhaps his finest film, “Ali: Fear Eats the Soul.” In “A Man Like Eva” (Times-rated: Adult for nudity and some brutal sex) Fassbinder has received a tribute worthy of his prodigious talent.