Despite dying at the age of 37, German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder still managed to be prolific during his short career, making over 40 films, and is considered one of the most significant figures of New German Cinema.

One of his most striking films, In a year of 13 Moons gets released here on DVD and Blu-ray for the very first time in the UK.

Getting over any break-up can be hard, but Elvira (Volker Spengler) is taking it particularly hard when her partner ups and leaves her, that sees her spiralling emotionally out of control.

This leads her to examine her life to date, which has seen her change gender, after having an operation in Casablanca having lived her life up to that point as Erwin.

Now with love no longer in her life, she begins a journey of self reflection, hoping to find meaning again, which she hopes to find in her past.

This film appears in the latter stages of his life, and it’s an emotional powder keg, as he made it in response to the suicide of his lover Armin Meier, and you get the sense his own fragile emotional state is reflected in every frame.

It’s a brave film, particularly when you consider when it was released in 1978, featuring as it does one of the very first starring roles for a transgender character. But instead of using Elvira as a freakish figure, which could easily have been the path taken considering the sexual landscape of the time, Fassbinder is nothing but sympathetic to her cause and her emotional pain.

It can be somewhat of a struggle in places, especially if you’re not familiar with the director’s approach to film, especially here where he adopts an avant-garde style that may take some getting used to.

For instance the narrative doesn’t necessarily flow, with a number of long monologues littered throughout, in a very still fashion, making it almost poetic.

Many scenes are quite lengthy too, that only makes the two hour running time film far longer.

A warning should be made too, when Elvira returns to a previous job, in an abattoir, in what has to be one of the most graphic scenes in cinema history, which sees the carcasses of slaughtered cattle for a lengthy period; if anything will make you a vegetarian, it will be this.

But there’s no denying Fassbinder had an incredible eye, with some intriguing cinematography at play, especially in a scene set in a 1978 German arcade, as well as the way his characters interact with their environs, such as a group of singing men making their way down a staircase in their work building.

Not only is it a remarkable telling of a transgender story, but it also serves as a historical look of Frankfurt in West Germany, 1978.

It’s the type of film that may well have the Marmite effect – or Vitam-R as it’s known in Germany – but it’s availability now in the UK is certainly a welcome one.