A paean to alcohol as a means of survival to this world, and to the ephemeral communities created by our need not to be alone. On Christmas Eve, between six in the evening and four at night, Klaus Wildenhahn films people who are excluded from this "must be" celebration, and land up in a bar in St. Pauli, Hamburg: truck drivers and prostitutes, regular or casual customers, a coach and an amateur boxer... all desperately in search of happiness, tenderness and sex.
Toftlund-Holst, the tranquil place on the Baltic Sea, just before Christmas: everything could be so contemplative, but the mood in the Torkelsen house is cloudy.
It is about brawls, prostitution, a prison escapee, murder and manslaughter. The film wants to be documentary, the director himself appears as moderator and interviewer.
Illustrates both the powerlessness of the ordinary worker as well as an intimate portrait of the joys and sorrows of a small group of people in the harbor section of Hamburg.
Centring on the legend of the four ancient Chinese heroines, the film was a novelty for audiences at the time, as the singing performance was in Cantonese and used huangmei operatic rhythms—a popular trend in the 1960s, yet it retained traditional flavours by using operatic luogu percussion in the battle scenes.
A Southern soldier in the American Civil War is sent to reconnoiter the enemy positions and becomes trapped beneath a huge pile of rubble by Northern cannon fire.
Humanity finds a mysterious object buried beneath the lunar surface and sets off to find its origins with the help of HAL 9000, the world's most advanced super computer.
"In my film I suggest that there is no greater mystery than that of the protagonists. War and Love are simply equated for what they are; the aftermath is inevitable, and a normal human condition, for which like the ancients one can only have pity and understanding.
