Neighbors 2, The Third Generation

Chloe Grace Moretz and Zac Efron in Neighbors 2

Nicholas Stoller's Neighbors 2 is a rote sequel that provides some chuckles, but is ultimately forgettable. Here, as in the previous film, Stoller gets nice performances out of Seth Rogen, Rose Byrne, Zac Efron and Dave Franco. However, there are no memorable moments like the breast pump scene from the first film. Stoller is not untalented, a neo-feminist critique of his own work embedded here shows an active mind. Most of the time, though, the film is on auto-pilot. Because Stoller's style here is mostly invisible, it is more productive to think of this as a Seth Rogen film. The usual touchstones are here: a bromance, Rogen's body used for comic effect, arrested development and, um, weed. Harmless fun, I suppose, but Rogen's corpus generally leaves me hungry for film by a real filmmaker. 

Namely Rainer Werner Fassbinder. His The Third Generation, from 1979, is batshit crazy and barely coherent. Yet, it satisfied me as a work of personal vision. Like Seth Rogen, Fassbinder has obsessive themes that figure in his works: the sado-masochistic nature of personal relationships, the conflicted camaraderie of groups, the thwarted promise of Socialism, the depravity lurking behind the glittering artifice of the bourgeoise, mirrors, film history and, um, schedule one narcotics. This last item is foregrounded in The Third Generation in the portrayal of the addict, Ilse. Numerous times in the film, she is shown preparing her fix while, in the background, feckless terrorists prattle on about their plans. After she dies from an overdose, Fassbinder offers a touching close-up of Gunther Kaufman, a lover of Fassbinder, weeping for her. The scene seems to portend Fassbinder's own descent into drugs and subsequent death. It also reminded me of the death of the infant Rocamadour in Julio Cortazar's Hopscotch in which intellectuals' think they are grappling with grand ideas while their loved ones fall by the wayside.

I wonder if Fassbinder was reacting against the success of his previous feature, The Marriage of Maria Braun. That film was, for Fassbinder, relatively tidy, a well constructed Sirkian melodrama, neat and explicable. The Third Generation is overstuffed and haywire, with inspiration from Bresson and Godard. Capitalism in The Third Generation, as in the work of the two esteemed and crazed Marxists, is little more than a harbinger of fascism. The Third Generation is a paranoid work laden with text, both visual and aural. The soundtrack is constantly cluttered by overlapping emanations from TV and radio. Both because the characters live in a media saturated culture and because they are constantly turning up the volume in fear of audio surveillance.

Hanna Schygulla in The Third Generation

The film carries a sense that the socialistic ideals of 1968 have been subsumed. Fassbinder has Bulle Ogier try to lecture students on the revolution of 1848, but they are more interested in advancing their own agendas than in learning the lessons of history. The terrorists' kidnapping of business titan Eddie Constantine (a nod to Godard's corporate critique, Alphaville) displays that revolutionary ideals have evaporated. The terrorists are dressed for carnival, even their hostage is in a celebratory mood and blows streaming whistles. Tragedy has descended into farce and nothing more needs to be said. The film ends abruptly.

The film leaves me with a frisson of elation. Of course, it helps that I am neither a Marxist nor a heroin addict. Seeing the familiar faces of Fassbinder's stock company fills me with joy at their bonhomie and esprit de corps. They are all banding together for a higher purpose. A group of misfits united in play. The tone in The Third Generation is that of curdled disgust in the face of a hopeless system, but the players play on. (10/25/16)