When Waldemar Palm married an old woman as a young man to give her estranged son a surname he didn't expect his good deed to come back to haunt him. When his in-laws from his second marriage show up on the same day that his adult step-son turns up unannounced he finds himself getting more and more wrapped up in his lies.
What are Ilona Herfurt and her boyfriend Dietmar Freistrath doing in the old mine? Where does the money come from that her son Jimmy finds under the newspaper? Where have the unique and intricately carved works of art, often passed down for generations, disappeared to from the village in the Ore Mountains? What do the carver Gerlach and his foster daughter llona have to do with it? Questions upon questions that are burning under the detective's nails.
In this film, Humbert is on the trail of his own history. Wolfsgrub is the name of the house where Humbert's mother lives, and though she is getting on in years, she becomes young again as she answers her son's questions.
The weekly brass band rehearsal is an enjoyable, light-hearted occasion. Then Mathew, the conductor, introduces James, a newcomer to the village, who is an enthusiastic bandsman from the north, where they do these things properly.
This film deals with the contrasts of the Wilhelminian era in Berlin: the splendor of the monarchy, the economic and intellectual vitality of the up-and-coming imperial capital on the one hand, and the misery of the proletarians in the tenements on the other.
Imagine a surreal narrative, without dialogue, in a style reminiscent of the 1920s silent era and seen through the lens of moving voyeuristic camera that records the odd whereabouts of an unseemly group of marginal tenants.
Jessica's promising debut as a young artist is shattered by a sudden and violent death. She escapes into a restless succession of journeys whose encounters along the way bring humour, some comfort, but also danger.
