Pigs Will Fly

After Laxe (Andreas Schmidt), a police officer in the Märkisches Viertel, beats his wife so brutally that she has to be admitted to hospital, he is suspended from his job and goes to visit his brother in San Francisco. The pregnant Inga (Laura Tonke) from Hanover is living in the same shared apartment and trying to keep her head above water with odd jobs. Laxe falls in love with her, builds her a shelf and starts trying to turn his life around. The emotional tension between the two is given yet greater intensity by signs of his potential for verbal and physical violence. Laura Tonke’s performance strikes a perfect balance between helplessness and self-determination. Filmed with a DV camera from the perpetrator’s perspective, this psychological portrait does nothing to exonerate Laxe. Nothing will ever be right again. (bik)