The strange and offbeat success of Fassbinder's Lola

One of Rainer Werner Fassbinder's last films, Lola (1981), is presented as a remake/update of Joseph von Sternberg's classic Dietrich classic, The Blue Angel (which has been adapted/updated elsewhere as well, such as in a novel by Francine Prose). I have to rely on my shaky memory of Blue Angel (funny how the title is reversed in the name of the current Met Opera lead singer in Porgy & Bess), but it seems to me that RWF doesn't update the original - he reverses it. In Blue Angel an elderly, strait-laced, "respectable" university professor goes into a cabaret/night club where he is mesmerized by Dietrich's performance, leading to his degradation, humiliation, and ultimate ruin. In the RWF update, the eponymous Lola is much more of an active, scheming presence. As in the original, this version depicts a 40-something civil servant, newly arrived in this small West German city not long after the war (the 1950s it seems) to serve as the new building commissioner; a straight-arrow, he's an immediate threat to the corrupt builder-developer and to his cronies in the government. They devise a plan to bring the straight-lace to ruin, and Lola (Barbara Sukowa) agrees to meet the commissioner and seduce him; they meet outside of the club, and he's smitten, and sees Lola as a sweet innocent: on their first date the visit a rural church, kneel in the pews, and sing hymns!). Only later does a co-worker, who wants the commissioner to know the truth, is he led to the nightclub where he sees Lola perform and learns that she's not only a chanteuse but a prostitute as well. At that point his mind falls apart, but further plot developments, which I won't reveal, leaves Lola in charge at the end. Most who see the film will remember Lola's riotous performances in the nightclub and the commissioner (Armen Mueller-Stahl) losing his mind and his bearings. What's most striking of all is how RWF depicts the whole movie against type: it's not at all noir, dark, gloomy as is the original, but it's filmed in almost lurid tropical color (the commissioner's office in city hall is done in all bright hues), w/ odd decor such as a line-up of dolls and stuffed animals in Lola's den, and with a classical score so out of keeping w/ the mood of the film as to work beautifully by keeping us always on the verge of disruption. RWF also includes a few touches that remind us of Germany emerging from the time of war: many of the characters, including the commissioner, have either served in the war or lost a spouse in the war; there are signs all around of war damage (broken and shattered walls), so we see the need for new construction as a necessary and inevitable post-war force; he also shows us some signs of the nascent West German economy, comic in its limitations - such as a new TV set that someday may be able to get not just 1 but 2 channels! - all told, a strange and strangely successful movie, all playing against type.