Jail Bait (1973) Wildwechsel

Director: Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Writers: Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Franz-Xaver Kroetz (play)
Stars: Eva Mattes, Ruth Drexel, Harry Baer

Jailbait (Wildwechsel, 1973), also known as Wild Game Crossing, is a bleak story of teenage angst, set in industrial northern Germany during the 1950s. Like in many other of his films, Fassbinder analyses lower middle class life with characters who, unable to articulate their feelings, bury them in inane phrases and violent acts. Love turns into a power struggle of deception and betrayal. The story centers on Hanni, a precocious fourteen-year-old schoolgirl who starts a relationship with Franz, a nineteen-year-old worker in a chicken processing plant. Their romance faces the opposition of the girl's conservative parents. Franz is sentenced to nine months in prison for having sex with a minor. When he is released on probation, they continue their relationship and Hanni becomes pregnant. Afraid of her father's anger, she persuades Franz to kill him. Back in prison, Franz is told by Hanni that their child died at birth and that their love was "only physical".

I recently had the good luck to find a copy of "Wildwechsel" and found it to be among the best work of Rainer Werner Fassbinder. It's an extremely rare film. The title roughly translates into "Jailbait," and it is a seemingly simple story about young love, between a 19 year old boy and a strange, mature beyond her years, girl of 14. What young girl wouldn't be smitten by the older, handsome, motorcycle riding Franz? Hanni's parents are horrified by the relationship and try to separate the pair, but have little success. The first portion of "Jailbait" plays out like a very sweet after school special kind of thing, (only with some graphic nudity) but when the second act unfolds, things take an extremely dark and disturbing turn, in true Fassbinder style. And Fassbinder truly is a master of dark drama and controversy. And many familiar faces appear, such as Hanna Schygulla, Kurt Raab, and El Hedi ben Salem. Harry Baer is wonderful as the young rebel, and Eva Mattes can play sweet innocent as well as she can pull off cold, clinical, and psychotic. As far as family dramas go, it doesn't get better than this bittersweet tale. Absolutely worth tracking down for fans of the late, great Rainer Werner Fassbinder.

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