<PERSON>
The miracle of Fassbinder is that he made more movies than he lived years, yet each of his movies tends to look as if it took years to plan out.
That's more true to me of "Veronika Voss" than just about any of his features I've seen. Who in the world is coming up with these shots, in this order, with this composition of sound, this quickly?
Pretty much everybody says this is a German "Sunset Boulevard." But I think they are missing all of the extra nuance. The movie reflects a half-dozen more aspects of reality.
For one, <PERSON>'s fame was attained during Nazi Germany, and in the movie's main storyline, she's hoping for fame in the postwar. That's dominated by American fare, e.g., all the country music played in the background. The film therefore plays up unattainable and possibly ill-gotten fame, associated with German fascism. That's an order of magnitude more serious and more political than the Hollywood starlet problems in "Sunset Boulevard."
More importantly, "Veronika Voss" could be viewed as taking place within "World on a Wire," <PERSON>'s miniseries depicting people living in a simulation. There's no end to similar shots between the two, including mirrored reality, obnoxious sparkles and glares, shots framed through windows, and oddball wipes. The movie even opens with a cut between <PERSON> watching her own movie in a theater, into the set of the movie itself, with some of the most gaudy glares ever depicted in a movie frame. That provokes anybody watching to say, "hey, this is all artificial. It's a movie!"
Is <PERSON> living in a simulation? Maybe or maybe not. I won't claim she's also living in a computer simulation, yet clearly that's the same flavor as the world of fame and attention -- a fake or alternate reality that's shaped her point of view.
This is all augmented by her drug and alcohol problems, combined with that weirdo doctor-lesbian clinic that seems to be brainwashing her. 295
From all of those angles -- drugs, brainwashing, stardom, a forbidden past, and a secluded life of glitz and riches -- <PERSON>'s reality seems simulated.
She's not herself; she can never be. Maybe she never was. The failed starlet wants to go back into stardom. To go back is to go back into the Matrix. By the way, I have no idea how much <PERSON> is a stand-in for "West Germany" and its Nazi past.
This all comes up in the early dinner conversation between <PERSON> and the sportswriter who would save her from dissipation. He says something about not knowing who she was, and that movies are not at all like reality. Then she says the light is too bright -- just like the overexposed lighting in the movie! -- and so the waiter puts out the electric candlelight at the table. What's happening within the movie is what's happening beyond the movie, from the moviegoer's perspective.
We're aware of the movie's constructedness, yet the realist sportswriter has no idea. He's in the simulation. About an hour in, he's talking to an agent and mentions old movie stars. The phone rings, and the camera quick-zooms up towards him. That's *exactly* what happens in "World on a Wire" when characters get too close to realizing they are in a simulation!
I am suggesting that the postmodernism of this film may mean it has more in common with "The Matrix" than with "Sunset Boulevard's" drama-noir. 829