Engelchen (1996)

Ramona is a sensitive woman in her early thirties. She lives in Berlin near Ostkreuz S-Bahn station. She works in a cosmetics factory, where nobody pays her much attention. She spends most of her free time looking out of her apartment window. There she can watch the spectacle of life: the main characters in her observations live in a neighboring apartment and are a constantly arguing married couple with a young daughter. Ramona’s life suddenly takes a turn when a young Polish man unexpectedly kisses her at the station. Andrzej is a cigarette smuggler, and the kiss enables him to escape the police. Ramona falls in love with the charming man, and a tender love story unfolds, seemingly headed for a happy ending when Ramona becomes pregnant and looks forward to having a child of her own. They want to give their child living conditions very different from those Ramona has witnessed day after day in the neighboring family. But life has another turn in store for her. She wants to marry Andrzej and start a family, but discovers that Andrzej is already married in Poland. Ramona’s world falls apart. Then, when her sister Lucie is also arrested by the police for theft, Ramona suffers a miscarriage. She had seemed to be breaking free of her isolation and had found hope for a happy life; now everyday life seems even more painful than before. Determined to find at least a little happiness in life after all, she decides to kidnap a child, trying to build herself an illusion of a happy family.