‘I can no longer bear this miracle, this miracle of knowing and having learned nothing in this world, apart from to love things and eat them alive.’ With this quote from Picasso in mind, the wayward and very productive Jewish-German film-maker, satirist and court jester Herbert Achternbusch sets into the greatest artist of the twentieth century.The lady-killer ‘Picasso’, who has reached a yellow period, leads a wild and lecherous life in Munich. He meets Takla Bash, an announcer with the Bayerischen Rundfunk, who inspires him greatly. He wants to paint her and start a film project in which he will fly through the air with her as a cow. The film is financed in a pretty unconventional way. Picasso lusts after Takla Bash, but doesn’t get very far because he turns out to be Takla’s father. Her mother left her behind in Munich at a young age and went to New York. Then Takla Bash falls off a ladder and dies. Picasso, overcome by sorrow, decides to die for her and hence to release her.Achternbusch: ‘Picasso stands for an untiring urge to create. When you look at his work, you forget he is dead. That’s what this story is about: Picasso is alive. He lives in Munich where he wants to experience his yellow period post-mortem, in a manner of speaking. If cinema was to worry about probabilities, there wouldn’t be any cinema at all.’
