A factory worker, an ordinary guy, goes berserk one day, killing the boss's son and throwing himself into the machinery. This grotesque modern tragedy begins Fassbinder's 27th film and one of his very sharpest. The murderer's widow tries to make sense out of her husband's seemingly pointless act; her quest leads her on a Swiftian journey through some of the more ludicrous arenas of yellow journalism and left-wing politics. Fassbinder's film is both a moving description of a woman's achievement of grace, and an excoriating description of a modern world - the world of hijackings, Patty Hearst, Watergate and Gary Gilmore - where it is often hard to draw the line between journalism, show biz, crime, and politics.