A somewhat impressionist, at times even slightly surreal miniature about a student (Werner Stocker in a splendid performance) who, out of financial difficulties, starts out as pool attendant at an open air swimming pool in Berlin's district of Neukölln. Escaping from his unpleasant landlord and his lover Patrizia (a very young Martina Gedeck), he soon starts to live at the baths, and as swimmers d...

Adaptation of Robert Walser's novel about a young man who enters an oppressive servant school.

Miss Giehse, an elderly teacher in a boarding school, tries with a lot of good will for her student Robert. The boy seems strangely withdrawn and depressed to her. Robert, whose behavior can be traced back to his parental home, which lacks orderly family relationships, disrupts the lessons with his defiant and rebellious behavior. All her attempts to investigate the causes of this behavior, howeve...

1919. Released from the teacher training college, Joachim Hofer takes up his first job as an assistant teacher in an Alsatian village. But only a few students come to class in the pigsty converted to school.