ABSTRACT
The emotions and longings expressed in the films of German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder (1945–1982) remain strikingly relevant today. Fassbinder insisted that despair and a certain degree of pessimism are necessary to produce cracks in dominant worldviews – challenging heteronormativity and opening space for utopian thought. This paper argues that his films resonate with contemporary deep-ecological and queer-feminist perspectives. Drawing on the work of Svetlana Boym, Ann Cvetkovich, Donna Haraway, and Lauren Berlant, it examines the utopian potential embedded in Fassbinder’s portrayals of impasse in Germany in Autumn (1978) and The Merchant of Four Seasons (1971). These films evoke what might be called “pessimistic hope”: a yearning for alternative ways of living that embrace negative affect. They dwell in ruins and gesture toward possibilities of regeneration.
