In einem Jahr mit 13 Monden (1978, Germany)

An intense, slow and difficult film about the troubled life of Elvira Weisshaupt (played by Volker Spengler). Elvira is a post-operative transsexual, but she is finding life difficult and she doesn't know what to do.

Early in the film her boyfriend has become fed up with her and leaves -- he says because of her appearance not matching his expectations and because of her stupidity.

Elvira seems to have been befriended by a hooker, Red Zora, and at Elvira's request they go to the orphanage where Elvira had been brought up (as Erwin). They meet a nun there who knew Erwin and she tells the story of his time: abandoned by his mother, he was brought up by kindly nuns but when he was in line for adoption, his natural mother refused and after that Erwin suddenly became ill-behaved, vicious and a petty thief.

Elvira collapses at this point, apparently because of the revelation that her natural mother refused to allow adoption.

Later we see Elvira outside the offices of a powerful property developer called Anton Saitz. We heard earlier that Elvira gave an interview to the local newspaper in which she criticised Saitz, and Elvira has been advised that Saitz will get revenge. But now Elvira has a drink at a bar opposite, and a stranger engages her in conversation: he used to work for Saitz but he got fired because he got cancer, and Saitz doesn't like to have illness around him.

Elvira goes in and climbs the stairs to the 16th floor, where Saitz has his office; she passes some men on the staircase, and when she looks out of the window on the 16th floor, she sees them killing a man in the yard below.

Elvira goes into an adjacent room, which is empty, and she sits on the floor and dozes. A man comes in and erects a noose; is he going to hang himself? Yes, obviously. He lights her a cigarette. Would he like something to eat? She has some groceries with her.

A rather surreal and incoherent conversation follows, but after a while the man does actually hang himself: "You can watch if you like."

Elvira finds Saitz's office but a doorman won't let her in unless she knows the password. Another incoherent conversation follows, until Elvira remembers a password that Saitz used when he ran a brothel -- evidently Elvira worked there. She says it and the doorman immediately lets her in. She is shown into a room where several men are watching television, but she has to ask the doorman which one is Saitz. He doesn't recognise her at first either, and he is quite rude to her. But eventually he suggests they go to her place for a coffee, because he remembers that Elvira (when she was Erwin) used to make excellent coffee.

They do so, and when Elvira goes to the kitchen, Saitz sees Zora resting on the bed. They hit it off immediately, and they embrace passionately; inevitably Elvira comes in at that moment, looks crestfallen, and withdraws. Saitz tells Zora that in the old days Erwin once told him that he loved him, and Saitz replied that it would be fine if Erwin were a girl. Erwin took this literally and went to Casablanca and had the operation.

Elvira withdraws to the bathroom, cuts some of her hair, and puts on male clothing and goes quietly out. She immediately meets her daughter and ex-wife, who are eating a sort of picnic in a garden. At first the wife laughs but they are suddenly tender; however the wife says that they can never go back as they were, and Elvira says she knew that, and rushes away.

Now Elvira goes to see the newspaper man to whom she gave the interview; he is with his wife and unwilling to let Elvira in so late at night. Elvira leaves, but after a while the man tells his wife that they had better go to Elvira's flat as he has a feeling that something is wrong. When they get there, Elvira has ended it all.

It's a very difficult film, intentionally made so by the director, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, who forces the psychological pressure (and his own demons) on his subject and his audience.

The film was also released as In a Year With Thirteen Moons; apparently the title is a reference to depressions that hit people at certain times.

HF June 2002

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