1998 film by Michael Juncker

In this highly symbolic political allegory, Averill is traveling through a troubled countryside amid rumors of war to visit his father. He reaches a train station in a city which is paralyzed by a transportation strike and is forced to take lodgings in a bizarre, unattractive town populated by seemingly malformed individuals. After a while, he begins to try to woo a much older woman, and symbolic images of entrapment, imprisonment and erotic enticement mark his adventures in this regard.

After a fight with her father, 15-year-old Carla sets out to find her mother, who ran away years ago. Her odyssey through Schleswig-Holstein, accompanied by a young musician, goes hand in hand with her growing self-awareness.

Malou feels that the difficulties she is experiencing in her relationships lie in her past and so she searches out information about her mother. Her mother, a nightclub singer who lived in Germany, France and Argentina, becomes the focus of a series of flashbacks through which we learn of her mother's stormy life and the difficulty she had in bringing her up. These insights enable Malou to sort out the difficulties in her own life.