The film is based on the short story Butterflies by Ian McEwan. A little girl has drowned in a nearby canal. A 19-year-old man, who lives in the same inner-city neighborhood, is the sole witness. Although he has made a statement to the police of everything he saw, the father of the little girl wants to talk to him today. The young man still has a few hours before the meeting, and lots of time to kill on this dreary Saturday. The events of the past days spring forth in his memory.

This film tells the sad story of a childhood somewhere in Germany in the early 60s. When Micha's mother leaves his irascible father, he tries to prevent their divorce by any means he can think of, but his attempts to hold the family together lead to a catastrophe.

Jan Nebel`s life is quite depressing and just a streak of bad luck. His former girlfriend tells him that she is HIV positive, his sister is married to a disgusting idiot and his father dies with his head on a plate of noodles. Above all, he gets into a street riot between anarchists and the police on the way to his job at a slaughterhouse. Thus, he is fired, but gets to know the mysterious Vera who becomes his new girlfriend. Together with Jan`s weird friend Buddy, they move into his father`s apartment and try to survive their Berlin everyday life...


Comments:

Outstanding film - if you only see one German film, see this one, 4 December 2004

Author: bedlam_beggar


This is my favourite German film - if you get a chance to watch 'Goodbye Lenin' and 'Berlin Nachtgestalten' as well, you have pretty much a 360 degree panorama of life in Berlin after the Wende. Superb acting, and very funny, too. The beautiful thing about this film is that the humour, being largely visual, makes it very accessible to viewers whose German isn't so fluent.

Young journalist Sebastian Zöllner is writing an article on artist Manuel Kaminski. Zöllner hopes that Kaminski dies soon, so that he can cash in on his article.

2003 film directed by Wolfgang Becker