Andreas Dresen is no longer as uncontroversial as he may have been when he brought a fresh, young and independent style to the entrenched German film landscape with HALBE TREPPE in 2002. In the meantime, this "Berliner Schnauze" style has almost become established (for example in Bernd Böhlich's YOU ARE NOT ALONE from last year), and it also appeared in the interviews in Cannes 2008 - to which WOLKE 9 was invited in the side section Un Certain Regard - Dresen portrays himself as a complainer, anti-elitist and consciously East German. It's actually not all that bad, and yet it causes a certain amount of discomfort, as I was and am someone who has had to defend Dresen's films again and again. However, while his last works were always characterized by a casual cheerfulness, Dresen changed the mode significantly in WOLKE 9 and staged a pure tragedy for the first time. He now has the well-meaning words of the feature section by tackling a taboo topic: Sex in retirement age, in general the motif of disappearing love, which is sought again at 70. In extreme cases, the philistine used to say that "a marriage should last until death do you part." Even today, it is unthinkable that marriages would break up in old age; the basic moral and social structures of the oldest generation do not yet allow this.After 30 years of marriage to Karl (Horst Westphal), Inge (Ursula Werner) falls in love with the pensioner Werner (Horst Rehberg). Relationship structures that are still functioning collapse when the woman confesses. She decides to follow “her dreams, longings and desires” as she argues and leaves Karl. The film's decision to give its characters an low intellect initially seems denunciatory. We laugh a lot at them, for example when Karl puts on a record with steam locomotive noises to calm him down or when Inge sings smug folklore in the choir. We know all of this from Dresen, the ironic illustration of everyday life that almost slides into the grotesque. German virtues that no one has ever been able to present as well as Dresen has always done.The amazing thing is that the character empathy doesn't suffer as a result. On the contrary, the clear language and emotions convey a lack of communication and words, which makes the situation more tangible for the viewer. While HALBE TREPPE and SOMMER VORM BALKON were films whose themes were predominantly dealt with in a humorous way, in CLOUD 9 the greater proportion shifts you into the dramatic. The slow decline of the old couple, the obvious lies about life while at the same time loving arrangement in the marriage, the uncovering of mechanisms, both in the past and in the present, all of this shocks the viewer immensely.In the end, Dresen becomes blatantly moral. He can hardly do anything else, because otherwise the dramaturgy would not be coherent, the film itself demands it that way. Inge chooses the path of selfishness, represses her own responsibility for another person and ultimately leaves her husband behind. She will have to pay bitterly for this and take on the guilt. Anyone who suspects there was a moral finger behind it is certainly right, but it is still a correct decision, cause we actually can not longer control the shock.
