Grim and realistic, made as a documentary with a hidden camera, the film tells the story of a night from the life of a Russian tramp in Berlin. He does not have much more than his accordion and his melancholy music set the tone of the film. It is a night of drunkenness and chance encounters in which the protagonist reveals that he can sink even deeper than when the night started. The people who cross his path all speak different languages but are linked by their desperate desire for a little bit of happiness. The lengthy and unvarnished gazes of the camera capture true life and mercilessly record a hopeless existence.
