Mother Küsters' Trip to Heaven

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Mother Küsters' Trip to Heaven
Mother Küsters Goes To Heaven DVD cover
Directed by	Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Written by	Rainer Werner Fassbinder Kurt Raab Heinrich Zille
Starring	Brigitte Mira
Release date(s)	1975
Running time	120 minutes
Language	German
IMDb profile

Mother Küsters' Trip to Heaven (German: Mutter Küsters Fahrt zum Himmel) was a film released in 1975 by German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The story revolves around Emma Küsters, a working-class woman who lives in Frankfurt. At the beginning of the film, Küsters learns that her husband (a tire-factory worker) has killed his supervisor and then committed suicide. It later becomes apparent that Mr. Kusters had become temporarily insane after hearing layoff announcements.

A group of reporters take advantage of the grieving Mother Küsters to sensationalize the deaths. Finding no solace from her son or daughter, Küsters turns to two members of the German Communist Party (DKP). The Communists (who see Küsters' husband as a misguided victim of capitalism) convince her to join the party, but Küsters soon grows impatient with the group's passive tactics. She soon connects with a small group of anarchists who convince her to stage a sit-down strike at one of the newspapers that defamed her husband.

There are two very endings to the film:

In one ending, the anarchists take the newspaper's staff hostage, and Küsters is killed in a subsequent clash with the police.
In another ending (primarily used for the American edition), the anarchists grow bored with the sit-down strike and leave. Küsters then meets a friendly worker at the newspaper's offices. The two go to dinner together, apparently beginning a romantic relationship.

Fassbinder's film criticizes the blood-thirst of the 1970s German media in a similar manner to The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum (directed by Volker Schlöndorff and Margarethe von Trotta). However, Fassbinder's film goes further by criticizing the overwhelming selfishness present in contemporary society. Nearly everyone who Mother Küsters encounters is self-serving and unconcerned with comforting her. Fassbinder also clearly criticizes the small German Communist Party's moderation and "armchair activism."