Solemplex To me, this movie is perfection.

Boobirt Stylish but barely mediocre overall

ChanFamous I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

Mandeep Tyson The acting in this movie is really good.

gavin6942 Hans (Hans Hirschmüller) is a street fruit peddler and born-loser. His choice of career upsets his bourgeois family, causing him to turn to drinking and violence. After recovering from a debilitating heart attack, his business finally begins to take off. However the more he becomes a credit to his family, the more depressed he becomes."The Merchant of Four Seasons" was a turning point in Fassbinder's career, marking his entry into the international film arena. It is considered by film critics to be one of Fassbinder's best films. For me, it was alright but not what I would consider among his best. Number one would have to be "Ali", and it is hard to dismiss "World on a Wire".Granted, I have not perused the Criterion DVD, and maybe I just do not understand the complete context of this film. Another time?

evening1 I have always found Fassbinder fascinating, but this film drags.First, Hans Hirschmuller is a strikingly unattractive protagonist. Sometimes that kind of casting can be interesting, but in this case the camera dislikes him. I recoiled from closeups of Hans's pimpled, pockmarked, dumpy body.In many cases, a guy who receives unsolicited oral sex from a sexy stranger would be viewed as lucky. Not in Fassbinder's universe. This come-on, in the police headquarters where Hans worked as a cop, was the beginning of the end for woebegone Hans. He squanders his wife's trust, hates and beats her for despising him back, and rejects floozies who inexplicably proposition him -- all the while descending into a morass of clinical depression.Hans's wife Irmgard, played by the mesmerizing Irm Hermann (a non-actress whom Fassbinder discovered while she was working as a secretary) is way more compelling. However, she too is reptilian in this film in which no one can be trusted and the world is a viper's nest of people chasing fleeting desires. (Irmgard's dowdy housewife nevertheless displays suntan lines -- very incongruous!) Some of the ins and outs of the plot are needlessly tedious. Who really wanted to watch interviews with five or six wannabe fruit hawkers? Though I'm glad I saw this film -- part of a double feature at a trendy Tribeca venue -- it so tired me out at end of a long workday here in NYC that I passed on Fassbinder's made-for-TV "Fear of Fear."

Itchload In Fassbinder's earlier films, his ideas sometimes surpased his ability to execute them. He was always a great writer, but it took him some time to get his style of camera work and storytelling down pat. The Merchant of Four Seasons is one of Fassbinder's first movie to make great use of color, from the bright green pears in the merchant's cart to the bright red roses at the funeral (a funeral in a Fassbinder movie? who'd have thought).His camera work was getting there too, but it was still fairly minimalist. The occasional zooms seem a bit uncomfortable at times and unnatural, but then again, Fassbinder was still coming out of his purely avant garde phase. This might be because Michael Ballhaus isn't behind the camera, but instead the slightly inferior Dietrich Lohmann.Still, this is Fassbinder, and you get your fix here. Broken dreams shown so vividly and unflinchingly as to alienate audience and drive them into a depressed stupor. Just what the doctor ordered. An early classic that shows remarkable progression when compared to his first films released only 2 years prior.

levb I'd be hard pressed to say what is it that makes this film so important to me. While a very good movie, this is definitely not the most outstanding Fassbinder's film. Still along with the American Soldier it keeps making it into my personal list of favorites whenever I get to thinking about it.