Review of Despair

This was good enough to encourage me to read the original Nabokov novel but this Tom Stoppard adaptation as filmed by Fassbinder has real problems. Stoppard suggests that it had been his intention that although we would see Bogarde and his supposed doppelgänger as different, Bogarde's vision, within the film, would be of his own image. If that sounds complicated wait till you see the rather melodramatic screen version. Andrea Ferreol as the ample 'ever moist' child/woman is fantastic (even though it seems she was learning the language on set) but Bogarde is only competent in what is admittedly and almost impossible role(s). There is much going on here in the director's first big budget movie but I feel he should have kept things more simple and not got so carried away with the finer details and contradictions of the inherent absurdity and surreal elements so as to highlight the tragedy of 30s Germany. Interesting and always ambitious but ultimately flawed interpretation.