Satan's Brew

“Fassbinder's most self-indulgent, decadent work” (Anna Kuhn), the aptly-named Satan's Brew is the director's first flat-out comedy, a grotesque, misanthropic concoction of absurdism, Expressionism, and outré sexual politics that demolishes all boundaries of good taste. After apparently murdering his rich mistress during sadomasochistic game-playing, a washed-up writer becomes convinced that he is the 19th-century symbolist poet Stefan George. His mentally slow brother, in the meantime, collects dead flies for sexual purposes. “Hollywood screwball comedies pale in comparison” (NFT/London). “If you want to know where Fassbinder's head is at, this is the film to see” (Richard Roud). "All my films, or nearly all of them, have been shown on German TV, generally two years after theatrical release. Satan's Brew is the only one that won't be shown. That's the one that they'll never accept" (Fassbinder). “Still outrageous after all these years, Satan’s Brew plays like a Teutonic version of an early John Waters movie ... Fassbinder never again made as subversive — and sublimely silly — a movie as this one” (Lawrence O’Toole, Entertainment Weekly). Colour, 35mm, in German with English subtitles. 112 mins.