Fassbinder's version of Ibsen's A Doll's House is High Baroque, an extravagant study of domestic cruelty and psychological domination. Part of a trilogy which culminated with his masterpiece Effi Briest, Fassbinder's acid portrait of Ibsen's trapped heroine (played by Margit Carstensen) turns the Helmer household into a mirrored Jacobean arena of betrayal and revenge. (Their living room is less Scandinavian minimalist than Miami rococo.) Fassbinder: "I showed quite clearly that I wasn't concerned with the problem of women's emancipation, although the play is always interpreted in this way....I've never read anything by Ibsen to the effect that Nora was supposed to be a pioneer of women's liberation....She simply tries to impose herself in certain, to my way of thinking, mediocre but rather realistic areas."-James Quandt, Cinematheque Ontario