Effi Briest (also known as Fontane Effi Briest; original title: Fontane Effi Briest oder Viele, die eine Ahnung haben von ihren Möglichkeiten und Bedürfnissen und trotzdem das herrschende System in ihrem Kopf akzeptieren durch ihre Taten und es somit festigen und durchaus bestätigen,[3] literally Fontane Effi Briest or Many people who are aware of their own capabilities and needs just acquiesce to the prevailing system in their thoughts and deeds, thereby confirming and reinforcing it) is a 1974 West German black-and-white historical drama film directed, written and narrated by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and produced by Juliane Lorenz.

Left alone, her parents discuss married life, during which Briest comments that his wife would have suited Instetten much better than Effi.

While taking a walk one day, she meets a Catholic woman named Roswitha at the grave of her late employer.

Effi's parents refuse to let her come home, because of the scandal she has caused, so she moves into a small apartment in Berlin with the faithful Roswitha.

Effi is enraged with Instetten, blaming him for teaching her daughter to act like a stranger to her, and suffers a nervous collapse.

Her parents agree to take care of her in their home, but Instetten remains obdurate, believing that she has been the ruin of his life.

Sitting in the garden after her death, her mother wonders if they are somehow at fault for causing her fate, but her father dismisses the idea with his usual evasion: “Ach, Luise, laß … das ist ein zu weites Feld.

it's too broad a subject.”) The original novel, Effi Briest by Theodor Fontane, was inspired by real-life events, [5] as it was based on a scandal between an army officer and his wife.

[5] Fontane turned this story into a condemnatory portrayal about how the 19th-century code of honor can both constrain and ruin a person's life.

[7] This movement would ultimately prove successful when in 1977 legislation granted married women the right to divorce and the ability to work outside of home.

[8] Similarities between Effi Briest and 20th-century Germany were easily found, helping to explain the popularity of the book and its subsequent film adaptions there.

[10] This is done by distancing the audience from the action, primarily through techniques such as keeping the most dramatic scenes off-screen and the segmentation of events.

[9] With such techniques the audience is denied the melodramatic scenes expected from a film about adultery, using this restraint to heighten the theme of repression.

[9] As Fassbinder described it, the reason he was so enraptured with Effi Briest and Fontane was due to how he “rejected everybody and found everything alienating and yet fought all his life for recognition.” [10] The production of this film took an even more personal turn for Fassbinder when he chose to cast his own mother, Lilo Pempeit, as the mother of Effi Briest, and decided to narrate the movie himself, personally rereading and interpreting Fontane's own words.