Ediths Tagebuch (1984)

West Berlin in the late 1970s. Edith, a middle-aged woman who was once clearly committed to left-wing politics and publishes a local newspaper, and her husband, Paul Baumeister, belonged to the 1968 movement around a decade ago. They must quietly acknowledge that their plans, hopes, and ideals have failed in the face of the realities of the times. Their son Chris, too, who occasionally suffers bouts of depression and feels he belongs to the “no-future” generation, has not turned out as they had hoped. Edith’s everyday life becomes more and more unbearable with each passing day, so she confides in her diary about the thoughts that surface as she contemplates her own life, which she believes may have failed. The diary soon becomes her best friend. But the realities she embellishes in its pages soon begin to obscure her view of what matters, and she can no longer distinguish reality from idealized wishful thinking. As Edith confides more and more in her diary, her emotionally cold husband Paul, who has long since changed course both emotionally and sexually, leaves her for a younger woman. Meanwhile, Chris has brought the ailing Uncle Georg, with his fantasies about the World Wars, into the house; he quickly becomes a burden to Edith as hostess. Chris flunks his final school exams, loafs around, and starts drinking. Daydreams and dream fantasies, which exist as “reality” only in her diary, now become all-consuming, since real life can no longer deliver what Edith expects of it.