Die Unberührbare

Die Unberührbare, already tipped for an Oscar, is about a woman who is no longer young and, in the latter days of a successful writing career, suddenly sees her whole world collapsed when, in November 1989 in Munich, she is confronted with the unforgettable TV pictures of the fall of the Berlin Wall. This Hanna Flanders was once a left-wing rebel who was fêted in the Sixties in both West and East Germany. When 25 years later, the Trabis drive into West Berlin, Hanna is a grotesque anachronism both outside and in. Heavily made up and sheltering under a bizarre black wig that makes her look like a sphinx, in a desperate urge she sells her painfully bald designer house, purchases a haute-couture coat and leaves for Berlin. After the fall of the Wall, the Ossis are mainly drunk with freedom. Everyone is consumed in the emotion of the moment and wants to forget the communist dictatorship as quickly as possible. Like a will o’ the wisp, Hanna flaps her way through Berlin. A spiral of humiliation ensues.Die Unberührbare shows that there are more sides to a historic event such as the disappearance of the DDR than are revealed by the TV images from 1989. In addition, the moving, black and white film is a requiem and a monument to the mother of the director, the writer Gisela Elsner. Hannelore Elsner (no relation) plays an unforgettable leading role.