A little boy takes in the magic of pre-Christmas, while the adults rush and worry about all that must to be bought.

16 year old Benno (Christof Wackernagel) lives in a reformatory until the Lohmanns, a rich middle-aged #WestBerlin business couple decides to adopt him. A new world opens up, one of adulthood and responsibility. For the teenager, this neatly regulated new bourgeois life feels all wrong.

“Information is like a bank. Some of us are rich. Some of us are poor, with information. All of us can be rich. Our job, your job, is to rob the bank. To kill the guard. To go out there to destroy everybody who keeps, and hides, the whole information. Simple. Special. Information. Power.”

– The High Priest

Mr R. (Kurt Raab), his full name is irrelevant, is a hardworking, almost invisible man. He laughs along when his coworkers make stale jokes to shorten the long days. He neatly completes his draftman's assignments and politely nods when the boss berates him. He smokes too much, 80 a day, and at the yearly checkup is told to cut the habit down. His son fails at school and Mrs R. wishes for nicer furniture and a skiing holiday, when Mr R. is promoted.

“No, no, geh' nicht vorbei, als wär' nichts gescheh'n, Es ist zu spät, um zu lügen, Komm und verzeih, ich werd' mit dir geh'n, Wohin dein Weg auch führt, Und die Welt, sie wird schön.”

– Christian Anders, Geh nicht vorbei (1969)

So why does Herr R run amok?

Bruno Stroszek (Bruno S.), his friends Eva (Eva Mattes) and Scheitz (Clemens Scheitz, responsible for the fairy-tale music you hear in this film) decide to leave dreary #Berlin behind and move to #Wisconsin where the latter's nephew lives. A new life, with dreams of music and animal magnetism, awaits them there.

“Was ist loos? Der Hund is loose.”

– Clayton

As so oft with #Herzog, the story behind Stroszek is as engrossing as the resulting film. Documentary maker Errol Morris and Herzog were fascinated by Wisconsin's own Ed Gein and wondered if Gein had dug up his own mother, as was rumoured at the time. As they would, they decided to open the poor woman's grave. Morris never showed up, and neither did Herzog but only because his car broke down en route to Plainfield, Wisconsin. Trying to get the vehicle fixed, Herzog entered the workshop of a Clayton Szalpinski.

 

A character in his own right, and a non-actor to boot, Clayton ended up in Stroszek as Scheitz's nephew; a MacGuffin odder than a dancing chicken.

“We're in America now.”

– Bruno S.

A lot of #soccer there's not, in Wim Wenders' Die Angst des Tormanns beim Elfmeter. What we do have happens almost right at the start. After a foul, the titular goalkeeper Bloch (Arthur Brauss) is removed from the match. Frustrated he leaves and finds himself roaming the streets of #Vienna where he picks up boxoffice girl Gloria (Erika Pluhar). In the morning he kills her and travels to the countryside, waiting for the police to arrest him.

“Ich werde mich entschlossen verirren.”

– Peter Handke

Die Angst is an early, perfect example of Junger Deutscher Film (”New German Cinema”). Its cinematic thanks to Robby Müller's observant eye and Peter Handke's precise language, both describing scenes and performers as if observed through a fourth wall.

 

A very slow burning road movie, a Taxi Driver in reverse if you will, that doesn't suffer the neurotic showmanship of its Hollywood counterpart.

In typical Western fashion the credits for William Klein's Festival panafricain d'Alger focusses on the French and American participants. After Algeria regained its independence in 1962, it became Africa's – and the #AfricanDiaspora's – centre for postcolonial and liberation moments.

“À bas le colonialisme ! À bas l'imperialisme !”

The 12-day Festival panafricain attracted 5000 people from all over the African continent, as well as liberation fighters from the United States.

Daniel (Bernd Feuerhelm) is a young man in #WestBerlin exploring his homosexuality. Initially he opts for a spießbürgerlich, petit-bourgeois, almost heterosexual affair. He then probes further, swings by Berlin's public toilets and pools. Only when he encounters a leftwing gay commune he finds that pride, not conformity, is his way of living his life.

“Werdet stolz auf eure Homosexualität! Raus aus den Toiletten, rein in die Strassen! Freiheit für die Schwulen!”

Von Praunheim's Nicht der Homosexuelle ist pervers is a plea for rebellion and visibility. For revolt and love. A wakeup call for gays and straights alike. Such a stir this film pamphlet made it became the blueprint for West-Germany's gay liberation movement.