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.
A film portrait that falls somewhere between a painting and a prose poem, a look at a woman’s daily routines and thoughts via an exploration of her as a “character”.
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.
There is something bizarre going on at the Hartcourt Academy for boys and girls. All the students are vanishing left and right under mysterious circumstances and no one except the new girl, Susan Galligan knows what has become of them because she is having visions that students are the victims of violent murders!
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.