We're getting a divorce

This first long feature by Ingrid Reschke features a little boy named Manni as main character, but it is anything but a children's film. On the contrary, it's a comedy aimed at an audience of those raising children. The young director clearly expresses her solidarity with the protagonist, who is married to a man who is simply as daft as a brush. It's no wonder that she wants a divorce. The protagonist is then confronted with a lover who even gets on well with her son (“Ich baue den Fernsehturm!”). The ex-husband rebounds quickly after his ex-wife's departure and develops an interest in the boy's attractive piano teacher. In the end, the boy comes around, if in an indirect manner, and the grandfather figure helps repair the marriage for the sake of the child, providing him with a semblance of a happy little family.

The film, shot on Totalvision, appeals not through its storyline, but also in its setting. Here,  East Berlin is presented as a metropolis in night-time trips in a car through the urban landscape in which illumination, neon signs and views from above of trains passing all set the scene.

In one example, Monika, our protagonist, finds herself in a relationship with an architect,  providing occasions to view large-scale building sites in the city like the Foreign Ministry, Haus des Lehrers (Teachers' Building) up to the Fernsehturm (television tower). On the way there, in front of large construction machinery, the camera dwells on a woman in a white coat with dark buttons; the woman in the coat is Johannes' new girlfriend, removing a bothersome rock from her high-heeled shoe. (sasch)