Dreht Euch nicht um - Der Golem geht rum! oder Das Zeitalter der Muße (1971)

The dystopia is set in the year 2300 in Cologne. Citizens do not move about in the open air, but within a system of halls like a modern exhibition complex. People no longer work, since that is taken care of by technology and lawbreakers who have been made recognizable as criminal slaves by their outward “facial disfigurement” and hunched gait. They have undergone brain surgery. Clothing is uniformly jumpsuit-like, and life is correspondingly monotonous: a “World Leisure Center” uses computers to determine how the day is to be spent. The old compulsion to work has been replaced by a new compulsion to spend leisure time. All that remains is to wait for death—which is especially exciting when it happens to other people. A lottery has emerged in which people bet on the next death. In this society, which has introduced reproduction regulations based on individual intelligence, Sig Prun wants a child. Since he does not meet the intelligence standard, his wish is denied. He defies the ban and fathers a son with his wife, who must henceforth be kept hidden. One day, when the curious youngster runs away, his father tries to find him. He wanders through the city and comes across a hidden entrance to the cathedral. Inside, he discovers a man illegally planing wood. Impressed by this way of spending time, he asks what the man is working on and what it will produce when it is finished. The man’s terse reply is that his work consists of making shavings from wood. Apparently, there are others who strive for creativity and fulfillment: the so-called “semi-intellectuals,” organized underground, who are pursuing a rebellious return to the past. At the end, Sig Prun is caught and, after a lobotomy, released back into society—as a hunched, facially disfigured slave whom children are allowed to thump for amusement.