Synopsis
Lili Marleen (1981) is Rainer Werner Fassbinder's wartime melodrama, available to watch online on iFILM. Cabaret singer Willie is stranded in Nazi-era Germany when one sentimental tune turns her into the voice of the entire front.
Willie (Hanna Schygulla) is in love with Robert (Giancarlo Giannini), a Swiss conductor from a wealthy Jewish family that quietly smuggles people out of the Reich. The war pushes the two onto opposite sides of the border. The more that song pours from every soldier's radio, the tighter the regime's grip on its new star — and the higher the price of every choice she makes.
Fassbinder stages it as lush, almost operatic spectacle and, underneath, a cold study of how art makes its peace with dictatorship. Schygulla carries the whole thing in close-up. Not the easiest Fassbinder to begin with, but one of his most accessible. Stream Lili Marleen (1981) online on iFILM.
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