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• Lumiere
• Admissions in 3 European countries
• Cineuropa
• 2 articles, 1 interview

• Berlin EFM 2019 (Line up)

Year of production : 2002

Director(s) : Ulrich KÖHLER

Midsummer. On the way back to barracks following a manoeuvre, 19-year-old Paul stays behind unobserved at a motorway service station. When his company leaves, Paul sets off for his parents’ bungalow; his mother and father are away on holiday. He is surprised when his older brother Max and Max’s girlfriend, Lene, turn up. The trio’s carefree sojourn comes to an end when the army catches up with Paul. The brothers’ knee-jerk reaction is to revert to their old familiar roles. A sense of responsibility, the urge to rebel, and Lene, who oscillates between the two young men according to her mood, all serve to make them prisoners of this place which takes them back to their childhood, and to fill them with anger and desire.
Ulrich Köhler’s first film already explores the themes he has extensively revisited in subsequent works: disorientated people alienated from their own families, on the search for stability; and rebels prepared to risk everything to avoid getting stuck in the rut of conventional social expectations and connect instead with their true selves. An intensely laconic tale of existential turmoil.