Featurefilm
Germany 1974
16 mm
60 min
Color
Magnetical sound

Crew

Buch und Regie
Ula Stöckl
Kamera
Franz Rath
Kameraassistenz
Thomas Schwan
Ton
Hajo von Zündt
Licht
Hony Stangl,
Max Panitz
Produktionsleitung
Brigitte Pospiech
Regieassistenz
Rainer Drexel
Produktion
Ula Stöckl Filmproduktion im Auftrag des ZDF
Redaktion
Sybille Rahn

Cast

Brigitte
Claudia Rückert
Mechaniker
Hans Lori
Fernfahrer
Günter Overmann
Malermeister
Helmut Zernickel
Konditor
Karl Plag
Koch
Richard Kirchbichler
Vermieterin
Dorothea Gmelin
Untermieterin
Gabriele Brockstedt
Assessor
Marquart Bohm

Contents

What does Brigitte want? She wants to work and live with those she loves. And to work at something which doesn't separate her from life. How can she manage this? First of all the young secretary rebels against the boredom and hassles of work and the problems her landlady is giving her. Her next step is more practical: she quits her job, and brings her five friends together, none of whom previously knew each other. She manages to get the five men to pool their individual talents into a new, joint business: they transform a run-down farm into a flourishing guesthouse. Brigitte had assumed that the success of the business would lead to each of the five men loving her more. Instead each of her relationships start falling apart; whilst the friendships between the men blossom. Before long they each find a girl friend amongst the customers.

Press

01: The story is based on a misunderstanding. It tells the tale of a woman who breaks out of her everyday life, and replaces her office routine with her own life-plan for finding happiness. In this "extremely moral comedy" Ula Stöckl discreetly tells the story of how the protagonist loses out in the end. She ironically shows how the main character uses her friends in order to further her own happiness and how the useful talents of the community go towards the project of building a guesthouse. The disciplined way in which the story is told effectively portrays misunderstood emancipation, the naive and egotistical aim of self-fulfillment and the limits of co-operating for a particular purpose.

The best thing about the film is that its moral is not told with a wagging of the finger, or by attaching labels: the contrast between the flourishing economic success of the business and the inner misgivings of its founder are ideally shown through images of the idyllic landscape and jolly customers round full tables. That the protagonist recounts soberly the story of her realization underlines the spontaneity of her experience: her dreams of love and fulfillment dissolve. Instead of having 5 lovers she has to make do with 5 pals. The effect of this story is not mitigated by any superfluous value judgments or pre-emptory conclusion.

Birgit Weidinger, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 31.10.1974
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