In a Year of 13 Moons


In a Year of 13 Moons is a 1978 West German drama film directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder and starring Volker Spengler. The film was made in response to the suicide of Fassbinder's lover at the time, Armin Meier. In a "Top 10" list of his own films, Fassbinder placed In a Year of 13 Moons second, after Beware of a Holy Whore.

Plot

The film recounts the last few days in the life of Elvira, a transsexual woman formerly known as Erwin. After being beaten up for trying to buy sex in a park, she returns home to her longtime lover Christoph, who's been away for six weeks. Christoph abuses her verbally and physically, and when he announces he's leaving for good, she desperately tries to stop him, only to be rescued by her friend Zora. We watch as Elvira and Zora visit a slaughterhouse and the orphanage where Elvira grew up, and her later contacts with her family and former lover Anton Saitz, as she attempts to come to terms with the consequences of her decision to change her sex. The film ends with the suicide of the main character after her subliminal cries for help go by unnoticed.

Cast