The film’s protagonists are Thomas, the toolmaker’s apprentice, and Michael, the schoolboy. The film recounts the absurd and grotesque adventures of these two rather contrasting friends, who nevertheless have one thing in common: they want to escape the stifling atmosphere of parents, teachers and school! Setting: East Berlin, at the end of the dreary 1970s. Their search for ‘dignity’ remains a futile gesture. It is empty, like the flat that Thomas breaks into, and the newspaper he uses as a mattress beneath him, or the first night of love that Michael experiences. Thomas’s cry fades unheard into the silence, and his leaflets are of interest only to the Stasi, who take him away. Michael, back from the sea and from his father—a dramaturg well-versed in quotations, whose play was meant to open people’s eyes—goes in search of Thomas... (Basis-Film Verleih)
Banal Days
Directed by
1990