Jugendliebe – Teil 3/3

‘You and I flyin‘ high’ - at first Franz and Maria are still cuddling, freshly in love and dreaming of Calcutta, to the cuddly rock from Styria, then he has to join the army and she has to go on a family holiday to Italy - from which the 17-year-old returns unintentionally pregnant. An abortion is out of the question ...

JUGENDLIEBE is more than just a dreamy portrayal of one: What makes this three-part film so fascinating is its precise observation of the petit bourgeois milieu in the countryside. And how this milieu, in which the men were in charge, influences the next generation, forcing them into a kind of resistance. The idyllic façade, whose external cement is provided by a stubborn belief in tradition, always begins to crumble when what is commonly referred to as ‘life’ comes crashing down on it.