Verzweiflung

The second full-leg film by Marcus Lauterbach is a gripping and heart warming drama about love, trust and the question of guilt, that is largely convincing thanks to the two wonderful leading roles by Nina Petri (also in Die Unberührbare) and Sylvester Groth.Ulrike comes out of jail and goes to live on her own. She doesn’t want to meet anyone. People have nothing to offer her. All they will give her, she thinks, is what she deserves: punishment for killing her child. Ulrike is continually looking for evidence for the idea that no one can love her, that her life has to be a trial. But when she meets Sigs, the result is something like love. From time to time she even manages to forget her past and her existence becomes a little lighter. But Sigs’ curiosity about what she has to hide increases. He drives her into a corner. She leaves him. If he were to leave her because he found out about her terrible secret, then that would be even more unbearable for Ulrike. Yet they meet again.On the occasion of his modern tragedy, Lauterbach quotes the Canadian director Atom Egoyan: ‘”Most tensions between people result from their own heavy burdens. They do not manage to get rid of them and can’t talk about them.” That is also the theme of my film.’