Pilotinnen

The dream of a different life: ‘Two drifters, off to see the world’ is a famous line from a song. (The film's originally planned title would have emphasised the musical element even more: The Summer Frank Sinatra Died.) An older and a younger woman, travelling across the country for a perfume company, have had enough of their daily routine and decide to take control of their lives. They become robbers in order to realise their dream of Bali – or an apartment in Paris. With Pilotinnen, his flawless feature film debut, Christian Petzold spreads out the overall concept of his cinema for the first time with somnambulistic certainty: a world in which succinct gestures seek to conceal the greatest melancholy and outward movement is intended to break the inner stagnation. A world in which the whole sadness of existence becomes tangible and can only be endured with laconic humour. (C.H.)