Original, stylish and meticulously-made Austrian film about a conscript on the Austro-Hungarian border. The sensitive Berger does not put up much resistance as military life floods over him. He withdraws into his erotic and romantic fantasies, that contrast with the crude approach to sex in the barracks. The director Wolfgang Murnberger obviously took great pleasure in visualising Berger’s fantasies. Apart from its obviously-autobiographical elements, provides a striking picture of an era – in the film it is 1980; the enemy is still expected from the East – that is not far behind us, but seems light years away as a result of the rapid and profound changes.
