FANTASIA OBSCURA: Fassbinder’s Sci-Fi Serial is a Cult Virtual Reality Wonder
There are some fantasy, science fiction, and horror films that not every fan has caught. Not every film ever made has been seen by the audience that lives for such fare. Some of these deserve another look, because sometimes not every film should remain obscure.
Sometimes, we have to marvel as we reflect on the nature of reality…
World on a Wire (Welt an Draht) (1973)
Distributed by: Westdeutscher Rundfunk
Directed by: Rainer Werner Fassbinder
The idea that our existence is a lie, and that we actually exist in a simulation, has been around far longer than Nick Bostrom’s “Simulation Hypothesis.” The first time we see it in any work can be traced back to Plato’s “The Allegory of the Cave,” and different aspects of such can be found from Ray Bradbury (“The Veldt”), Stanislaw Lem (The Cyberiad), and Phillip K. Dick (Eye in the Sky, among plenty of his other works). And on screen, we get examples of this from various episodes of The Twilight Zone and Black Mirror.
And of course, there’s this one (which is getting another film in the series soon):
Years before this film, however, one of these works on fictitious realities, Simulacron-3 by Daniel F. Galouye, got an adaptation in the hands of one of the most celebrated directors of all time:
Our films opens in a version of contemporary times that has a few enhancements over our own, in that it has phones tied to televisions for audio-visual calls, lots and lots of plastics, and of course an advanced computer that can set up a detailed simulation. The simulation is so complex, it’s peopled (for lack of a better term) by individual pieces of the program that are as close to human as possible, to the point of being capable of autonomous thought, all populating a miniature world within the mainframe.
This simulation, made by the Institut für Kybernetik und Zukunftsforschung (IKZ), made this program for the government as part of its efforts to build a predictive tool to accurately see the effects of policies 20 years into the future. By having these policies take place in this mini-universe with its 9000 inhabitants, it hopes to better anticipate the impact of any policies it enacts today.
When we open, we find out that the project, called Simulacron 1, is almost ready to run. In a briefing with Secretary of State Von Weinlaub (Heinz Meier), the head of IKZ, Herbert Siskins (Karl Heinz Vosgerau), informs the Secretary that the project has a 5.8 per cent error rate. When he asks the creator of the program to explain, Professor Henri Vollmer (Adrian Hoven), starts on a rant about how nothing anyone sees is real. This forces Siskins to ask the head of security, Gunter Lause (Ivan Desny), to take Herr Professor to his office to lie down for a nap, hoping that once his headaches stop that he’ll be a bit more personable.
When the two are alone, Vollmer shares some information with Lause, which we don’t hear as the camera pans out from their conversation, right before Vollmer walks away and enters the computer room, where he drops dead. From what, no one can readily tell, but it does feel suspicious even if no one calls it that until later.
Before the funeral, Siskins throws a party at his place, complete with indoor pool next to the bar that guests are using. Around the pool are his secretary Gloria (Barbara Valentin), who makes passes at Fred Stiller (Klaus Lowitsch), Vollmer’s assistant, right after Siskins offers Stiller the job to replace his former boss. Also at the party is Lause, who is desperate to talk to Stiller about what Vollmer told him, but before he can, he… disappears.
No, that word’s not being used euphemistically; Lause just disappears from where he was sitting, no warning, no puff of smoke or sound effect. He’s just gone, not only from the scene, but everyone’s memories (save Stiller’s). He’s undergone a complete erasure from reality, as in er ist total verschwunden.
Soon, Stiller with his assistant, Fritz Walfrang (Gunter Lamprecht), start working on the model, assisted by the project psychologist Franz Hahn (Wolfgang Schenck), to get the program going again. Along the way, however, they make a few disturbing discoveries; one them is that Siskins is giving the folks at United Steel Inc., whose chairman he’s a good friend of, access to Simulacron ahead of the government for their own ends to dominate the market. The other is that some of the inhabitants of this small world are inexplicably committing suicide, something that’s passed up to them from their contact unit, Resident 0001, aka Einstein (Gottfried John), the only resident in Simulacron who is aware that he’s only a computer routine.
After Stiller inserts himself into Simulacron for a talk with Einstein, things start to go badly for Stiller. First, he’s saddled with a new member of his staff, Mark Holm (Kurt Raab), who is clearly with IKZ as United Steel’s point person. The second is when he finds out that Fritz has had his mind switched with Einstein, and Einstein tells him Vollmer’s horrible secret: That Stiller’s reality is also an artificial reality, and that they are the lab rats form someone above them…
From that moment, it becomes a race against time for Stiller. Can he find his world’s contact unit, his reality’s Einstein, to get to the bottom of it all? Can he do it before Siskins and Holm try and remove Stiller from IKZ in disgrace before he turns over evidence of corporate maleficence to the state? Can he handle the truth, even as it drives him mad the way it did Vollmer, before it kills him…?
There’s also another “race” going on behind the camera as well. Fassbinder, who was only 27 at the time, shot the entire project on 16 mm film over six frantic weeks around Paris, which compared to German locations at the time was more stylish and had plenty of sites that seemed more futuristic and outlandish, such as more readily accessible modernism structures and enclosed shopping malls. And in many ways it feels very much a race, as his camera does a lot of zoom ins and zoom outs, 360-circling of his subjects, and other frenetic set ups and tracking shots.
Rainer Werner Fassbinder, circa 1974
What truly enhances this tale are the subtle staging he makes in his shots. Just about every shot he sets up for set pieces involve plenty of glass and clear plastics, placing characters through windows and shooting them with mirrors prevalent on set. The use of all of these portals and reflective surface at first subtly hints, then explicitly screams, as to the nature of the universe this is set in, that Stiller’s world is a simulation, a reflection of the world that its builders (hopefully us, as opposed to some other reality) has made and is looking down into.
Hardcore Fassbinder aficionados have sometimes been willing to dismiss this work, feeling that its pedigree is not up to snuff. As the film was originally done as a two-night made-for-TV mini-series for West German television (not getting a theatrical release around the world until 2010), some argue on that basis that this is a lesser work. When one considers the similar origins of such long works as Berlin Alexanderplatz and Eight Hours Don’t Make a Day, other TV mini-series that got theatrical runs overseas, this seems a specious argument. And while this production may not be as polished as some of his later masterpieces, such as The Marriage of Maria Braun and Veronika Voss, there is enough of his style and craftsmanship to demand the attention of the audience.
Cover of press kit tied to film’s theatrical release in 2010
For those, it may be the usual fear of being tied to genre work that keep them from embracing the film, the same way Goddard’s Alphaville has an odd relationship with both genre fans and Goddard’s as well. And while serious fans of Fassbinder may be conflicted about this, his only foray into genre, there is plenty to be embraced by hardcore SF fans, who get a solid story about the nature of reality and simulations with considerable care and thought not usually given to such films.
While the Wachowskis resorted to martial arts and guns, Fassbinder got much more impact using only glass and mirrors. For that alone, this is worth putting aside whatever’s in your reality that may keep you from enjoying this film.
NEXT TIME: Remember when we said that you can’t make rabbits terrifying on film? Well-l-l-l-l-l….
