Despair

Chocolate, cuckoldry and doppelganger delusion abound in Rainer Werner Fassbinder's stunning English language adaptation of Vladimir Nabokov interwar novel. The chocolate business has been good to Russian exile Hermann. He enjoys the good life with his beautiful wife Lydia. But Hermann is addicted to out-of-body experiences and when he meets a tramp on a business trip, he hatches an insane escape plan. Featuring international stars Dirk Bogarde (Death in Venice) and Andrea Ferreol (La Grande Bouffe) and adapted by British dramatist Tom Stoppard (Shakespeare in Love), Fassbinder's Despair is a vivid off-kilter masterwork set against the background of the Nazis in ascendance.