Search a film or person :
FacebookConnectionRegistration
Despair is a Allemand film of genre Drama directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder released in USA on 1 october 1978 with Dirk Bogarde

Despair (1978)

Despair
If you like this film, let us know!
Released in USA 1 october 1978
Length 1h59
OriginGerman
Genres Drama,    Thriller,    Fantasy
Rating68% 3.445093.445093.445093.445093.44509

Despair is a 1978 film directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder and starring Dirk Bogarde, based on the novel of the same name by Vladimir Nabokov. It was entered into the 1978 Cannes Film Festival.

Similarly to the novel, the tone of the film is ironic. The plot is mostly similar to the novel, although one of the key characters is significantly altered in the adaptation.

Synopsis

Hermann Hermann is a successful entrepreneur in the 1930s Germany. As the Nazis gradually rise to power, Hermann, who is a Russian émigré, becomes increasingly frightened and mentally unstable. His attempts at leaving the country are accompanied by symptoms of madness, the most vivid being his belief that he found his exact double, although the person in question differs from him in every respect. He creates an elaborate plan that would allow him to flee to Switzerland, but it soon becomes unclear whether his voyage leads him to a neutral country or merely allows him to take refuge in his madness.

Actors

Trailer of Despair

Bluray, DVD

Streaming / VOD

Source : Wikidata

Comments


Leave comment :

Suggestions of similar film to Despair

There are 172 films with the same actors, 38 films with the same director, 71043 with the same cinematographic genres (including 392 with exactly the same 3 genres than Despair), 3826 films with the same themes (including 1 films with the same 5 themes than Despair), to have finally 70 suggestions of similar films.

If you liked Despair, you will probably like those similar films :
Why Does Herr R. Run Amok?, 1h28
Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Michael Fengler
Origin German
Genres Drama
Themes Medical-themed films, Psychologie, Films about psychiatry
Actors Kurt Raab, Lilo Pempeit, Harry Baer, Hanna Schygulla, Ingrid Caven, Irm Hermann
Rating71% 3.597723.597723.597723.597723.59772
Le film montre la vie quotidienne d'un quadragénaire allemand, dessinateur industriel, et bon mari.
Berlin Alexanderplatz (miniseries), 14h54
Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Genres Drama, Crime
Themes Medical-themed films, Prison films, Films about sexuality, Erotic films, LGBT-related films, Films about prostitution, Films about psychiatry, Political films, Erotic thriller films, Films set in psychiatric hospitals, LGBT-related films, LGBT-related film
Actors Hanna Schygulla, Barbara Sukowa, Bata Kameni, Elisabeth Trissenaar, Gottfried John, Karin Baal
Rating83% 4.1935254.1935254.1935254.1935254.193525
1: The Punishment Begins Berlin, 1928. Franz Biberkopf is released after serving four years in Tegel prison for killing his girlfriend Ida. After settling into his old apartment he visits Minna, Ida’s sister. Minna succumbs to his forceful advances. In a flashback we see Franz kill Ida with a cream whip after correctly suspecting she was about to leave him. Franz later runs into his old friend Meck and has a drink with him in Max’s bar, a local place. There he meets Lina Przybilla, a young Polish woman, who moves in with him. He receives notification from the Berlin Police that he is barred from living in certain Berlin districts and surrounding municipalities, under the threat of a fine or imprisonment, Biberkopf places himself under the supervision of a charity called Prisoners' Aid, to which he must report once a month, and remain in employment. By doing this, he is able to remain in Berlin.
Veronika Voss, 1h44
Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Origin German
Genres Drama, Crime
Themes Medical-themed films, Films about drugs, Films about sexuality, Films about psychiatry
Actors Rosel Zech, Hilmar Thate, Annemarie Düringer, Doris Schade, Erik Schumann, Günther Kaufmann
Rating75% 3.79553.79553.79553.79553.7955
The film is loosely based on the career of actress Sybille Schmitz and is influenced by Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard.
Beware of a Holy Whore, 1h43
Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Genres Drama, Comedy
Themes Medical-themed films, Films about drugs
Actors Lou Castel, Marquard Bohm, Eddie Constantine, Hanna Schygulla, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Margarethe von Trotta
Rating65% 3.2960553.2960553.2960553.2960553.296055
Beware of a Holy Whore is a satirical meta-film about Fassbinder's previous production, Whity. It opens with a soliloquy (delivered by Werner Schroeter) about the synopsis of a Disney short featuring Goofy, the dog. Goofy cross-dresses in his aunt's clothes to teach a kindergarten class and, after being ridiculed by the class, takes a "poor orphan girl" into his home. The little girl is actually a dwarf gangster, Wee Willy, and he fools Goofy into caring for him by wearing the clothes that Goofy discarded after being ridiculed by the school children. That night Goofy's house is raided by police and Wee Willy is arrested, revealing the "poor orphan girl's" true identity to Goofy. When Willy's true identity is revealed the confused Goofy says, "What a shock that must have been for the poor little girl when she discovered that she is a crook". In both instances—attempting to teach the kindergarten class and caring for Wee Willy—Goofy is beaten by those for whom he only sought to care. This opening soliloquy alludes to the film's underlying themes of violence, self-blindness, and same-sex and bisexual relationships.
Satan’s Brew, 1h52
Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Origin German
Genres Drama, Comedy, Comedy-drama
Themes Films about writers
Actors Kurt Raab, Margit Carstensen, Helen Vita, Volker Spengler, Ingrid Caven, Ulli Lommel
Rating66% 3.3462053.3462053.3462053.3462053.346205
Walter Kranz (Kurt Raab), a former revolutionary poet who attempts to base his life on that of Stefan George is lost for new ideas and penniless. Fortunately he can obtain a cheque from nymphomaniac Irmgart von Witzleben (Katharine Buchhammer) who wants to be threatened by a gun. Walter fires and disappears. Some more obscure things happen but in the end everybody is back on stage.
In a Year with 13 Moons, 2h4
Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Origin German
Genres Drama, Romance
Themes Films about sexuality, Films about suicide, Erotic films, LGBT-related films, Films about prostitution, Transgender in film, Erotic thriller films, LGBT-related films, LGBT-related film
Actors Volker Spengler, Ingrid Caven, Gottfried John, Karl Scheydt, Eva Mattes, Günther Kaufmann
Rating73% 3.692413.692413.692413.692413.69241
The film recounts the last few days in the life of Elvira (Volker Spengler), a transsexual woman formerly known as Erwin. After being beat up for trying to buy sex in a park, she returns home to her longtime lover Christoph (Karl Scheydt), who's been away for six weeks. Christoph abuses her verbally and physically, and when he announces he's leaving for good, she desperately tries to stop him, only to be rescued by her friend Zora (Ingrid Caven). We watch as Elvira and Zora visit a slaughterhouse and the orphanage where Elvira grew up, and her later contacts with her family and former lover Anton Saitz (Gottfried John), as she attempts to come to terms with the consequences of her decision to change her sex.
The Merchant of Four Seasons, 1h28
Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Origin German
Genres Drama
Actors Irm Hermann, Hanna Schygulla, Klaus Löwitsch, Kurt Raab, Ingrid Caven, Hark Bohm
Rating72% 3.6455453.6455453.6455453.6455453.645545
Hans, an ordinary but likable man, returns home after spending several years in the French Foreign Legion. He is berated by his mother ("The good die young, and people like you come back," she says after hearing about the death of the young friend Hans had taken to the army with him).
Martha
Martha (1974)
, 1h56
Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Origin German
Genres Drama, Thriller
Actors Margit Carstensen, Karlheinz Böhm, Barbara Valentin, Ingrid Caven, Peter Chatel, Kurt Raab
Rating74% 3.7428953.7428953.7428953.7428953.742895
Martha Heyer, a virginal 31 years old librarian, is on vacation in Rome with her domineering unloving father. He is a fastidious man who refuses to be touched. At their first stop while touring the city, the Spanish Steps, the father suffers a heart attack dying in Martha’s arms. Martha soon discovers that her purse, containing all of her money, has been stolen in the confusion. She reaches for help at the German embassy and phones her mother giving her the bad news. Leaving the embassy, Martha crosses the path of a gentleman, who catches her eye – and she his. They are mutually mesmerized but keep going their own ways.
World on a Wire, 3h25
Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Origin German
Genres Drama, Science fiction, Thriller, Crime
Themes Films based on science fiction novels
Actors Klaus Löwitsch, Barbara Valentin, Karl-Heinz Vosgerau, Ulli Lommel, Wolfgang Schenck, Ivan Desny
Rating76% 3.844883.844883.844883.844883.84488
At the Institute for Cybernetics and Future Science ("Institut für Kybernetik und Zukunftsforschung, IKZ"), a new supercomputer hosts a simulation program that includes an artificial world with over 9,000 "identity units" who live as human beings, unaware that their world is just a simulacron. Professor Vollmer (Adrian Hoven), who is technical director of the program, is apparently on the verge of an incredible secret discovery. He becomes increasingly agitated and anti-social before dying in a mysterious accident. His successor, Dr. Fred Stiller, has a discussion with Günther Lause, the security adviser of the institute, when the latter suddenly disappears without trace, before passing on Vollmer's secret to Stiller. More mysterious still is the fact that none of the other IKZ employees seem to have any memory of Lause.
Mother Küsters Goes to Heaven, 1h43
Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Origin German
Genres Drama
Actors Brigitte Mira, Ingrid Caven, Karlheinz Böhm, Margit Carstensen, Irm Hermann, Gottfried John
Rating74% 3.7456853.7456853.7456853.7456853.745685
Emma Küsters (Mira), a working-class woman, lives in Frankfurt with her son and daughter-in-law. While she is doing outreach work assembling electric plugs, Frau Küsters learns that her husband Hermann (a tire-factory worker for twenty years) has killed his supervisor and then committed suicide. It later becomes apparent that Mr. Küsters had become temporarily insane after hearing layoff announcements.