World On A Wire [Rainer Werner Fassbinder / 1973 / 212mins]

World On A Wire is a curiosity in Fassbinder’s filmography, his sole foray into the science fiction genre -a two part mini-series filmed for German television shot over six weeks on 16mm film. This Sci-Fi vehicle is slyly used to Fassbinder’s own uncompromised ends; justifying the detached plastic behaviors of his stable of regular actors, who are effortlessly at home within the highly stylized framework of the film. As if it were made for them. The world of World On A Wire is essentially the product of three people; Fassbinder the director, Michael Ballhaus the cinematographer and Kurt Raab production designer. Like Jean Luc Godard’s ‘Alphaville’ it was filmed in existing buildings and locations on a shoe string budget. In place of costly special effects, we see formal experimentation pushed to the outer fringes. The impeccably composed interior decors -mainly contained within the headquarters of IKZ where most of the films action takes place- constructed out of contemporary shiny plastic molded furniture, white leather sofas, weird glass and plastic partitions and other found objects assembled by Raab. Together with the mannequin like actors, all collectively contained within Ballhaus’s remarkable colour photography; endless gliding tracking shots often traveling sinuously three sixty degrees around scenes at unimaginable angles spontaneously creating an endless stream of startling graphic compositions by using the imposing negative spaces of Raab’s fantastical ‘mod’ props. This is all punctuated by abrasive abstract blasts of raw analog synthesizer sounds further corroding the already fractured atmosphere. The film opens at IKZ (Institut für Kybernetik und Zukunftsforschung) headquarters. A chain of bizarre events unfolds, starting with professor Henry Vollmer’s apparent suicide seconds after declaring something unspeakable about the nature of their reality to a collegue Gunter Lause. Fred Stiller – a researcher and Vollmer’s collegue, is away in the mountains when this happens. When he returns Gunter Lause tries to warn Stiller about Vollmer’s shocking realization while they are at a strange indoor pool party complete with speedoed body builders flexing their muscles to wagnerian opera music. He mysteriously disappears from his chair while Stiller is momentarily distracted by a breaking glass behind him. Stiller becomes the new technical director of IKZ fulling the deceased Vollmer’s shoes. We learn about Simulacron, an artificial world which Stiller helped design. A microcosm computerized universe mirroring reality, inhabited by 9000 ‘identity units’ whose senses can be individually tuned into through a heavily wired virtual reality ‘space’ helmet. Accompanying this device is a vast bank of computer screens transmitting black and white surveillance feed from Simulacron. The world of Simulacron is a testing ground for predicting future trends. A mysterious steel company ‘United Steel’ headed by the shady ‘Hartmann’, a friend of Herbert Siskens (president of IKZ) has interests in using Simulacron to predict
the future of steel in the transport industry. The unexplained disappearance of Lause, who nobody seems to remember, combined with various odd computer type glitches Stiller experiences lead him to believe that his current reality may be just another higher level of Simulacron. This is subtly implied throughout the film by the myriad of filmed reflections. We often experience the characters interactions indirectly through their reflections in mirrors, glass, steel and highly polished surfaces. Stiller becomes increasingly anxious, convinced that he and all the others around him are almost certainly identity units within Simulacron. The company psychologist Franz Hahn tells him he is being paranoid and needs relax, take some time off. Paradoxically Hahn later reveals himself to be a ‘contact’ person between reality and the Simulacron world which they indeed inhabit. He commits suicide minutes later driving a car off a jetty into a harbor. Later Eva Vollmer -the daughter of prof. Vollmer- who Stiller has become elusively entangled with, tells Stiller that she has been sent there as an ‘observer’ and he is in fact a projection of the real Fred Stiller actual technical director in the real world who has become a megalomaniac and is playing god with Simulacron. Is this just another sub reality in the Simulacron universe? Unlike the supposedly real Stiller whom we never meet, Stiller the identity unit is sensitive and vulnerable, in many scenes, anxiously drinking a glass of whiskey or bottles of beer to take the edge off of his conspiratorial reality. I was ‘nt entirely surprised to learn that the actor playing Stiller (Klaus Lowitsch) -who is remarkably composed the entire film, albeit a little on edge, occasionally performing prodigious stunts like leaping over tall fences- was actually a functioning alcoholic, allegedly drinking steadily during shooting.