Freispiel (1995)

Freispiel is about the midlife crisis of music teacher Robert Brenneis. He teaches at a secondary school in Vienna and dreams of being a pop star like his former schoolmate Roland Pokorny. Brenneis is more or less dogged by bad luck. Every morning on his way to school, he goes through the same routine, interrupted only by a coffee and a lost pinball game at a café. His music lessons are rather plodding and stoic: his students show little interest in the class and walk all over him. One student attempts suicide inside the school building because of a make-or-break math exam, but the attempt fails. At home, Robert works on his music, though he cannot seem to get very far with it. His wife Doris works at the Schindler artists’ agency. Her boss regularly turns on the charm, and when Robert looks out the window while playing guitar, he sees Doris with Schindler in a car and reacts jealously. His son Michael is distant toward his father. He would rather confide in his mother, telling her that he is in love with his classmate Tina, but she turns him down because she has a new boyfriend. The father hears about this only in passing. Doris and Robert are invited to Schindler’s garden party. Brenneis is reluctant to go and is annoyed by the company there. Lilly, a colleague of Doris’s who has also developed a bit of a crush on Robert, plays Robert’s cassette and songs for the guests. Schindler immediately cuts her off, since he has no interest in Robert’s songs. Brenneis leaves the party. The principal of the school rejects Brenneis’s application for permanent civil-servant status because he does not fit in with the staff or the principal. A colleague who has not worked at the school as long as Robert is favored and receives permanent status. Robert is not in the mood for a holiday, but when his son Michael wants to travel alone, he agrees to Doris’s holiday plans. They go to Lignano. However, the heat soon sours his mood again, and he takes the train home early. Doris spends the holiday alone in Lignano, where she is subjected to a few pranks and a man’s crude advances, and nearly has a flirtation with a young Italian with whom she talks about Robert Musil. In Carinthia, Robert decides at short notice to visit his billiards friend Reinhard, who is suffering from severe back pain, in the (fictional) spa town of Bad Loiperskamm. They go for a drive and eventually end up at a boozy celebration in a beer tent. There, Brenneis first flirts with the waitress, then performs an offbeat song onstage, for which he is booed and even beaten up. Back in Vienna, Lilly, who is supposed to water the flowers in the apartment, runs into Brenneis, who has returned early, and flirts heavily with him. But things go no further than a kiss, as they are interrupted by a phone call from Doris. Since returning home, Brenneis has been undergoing a transformation: he shaves off his beard and trades his baggy, nondescript clothes for jeans, cowboy boots, and a leather jacket. As he hurries out of the apartment, he knocks over an almost-empty glass of milk on the couch, leaving an ambiguous stain. That same evening, the new, self-assured Robert Brenneis meets Lilly at a Roland Pokorny concert, but afterward they go their separate ways. After the concert, Brenneis manages to get into the band’s dressing room. Pokorny and Brenneis see each other again after a long time and make their way through nighttime Vienna to a private party. Robert also brushes off the sleazy agency boss Schindler as a “return favor,” telling him that he “has Mr. Pokorny’s complete confidence.” At the party, alongside the drinking, the distinguished guests indulge in drug use and wild sexual excesses. Robert and Roland perform a song they composed together years ago, and the party guests enjoy it. Their reunion brings many old and new subjects out into the open. While looking for a toilet, the two get lost and end up on the roof. Their conversation gradually turns into an argument, and the situation escalates. Robert attacks, and they break through the barrier and slide together down the sloping roof. They manage to stop themselves just before falling and get back into the apartment through a window. The incident only strengthens their friendship. Doris, who has since returned home, discovers the remains of Robert and Lilly’s dinner, the mess in the apartment, and the dried remains of a white liquid on the couch. She puts two and two together, opens a bottle of whiskey, starts drinking, trashes the apartment, and destroys Robert’s guitar collection in a fit of jealous rage. Then, drunk and exhausted, she falls asleep on a sofa. The night is slowly drawing to a close, and at daybreak Robert and Roland make it to the café where Robert usually plays pinball. They exchange a few final words of wisdom, and Robert finally wins a free game when Pokorny’s manager rushes in, reminds Roland of his obligations, and takes him away. Robert has turned down an offer to work and tour together, and he is content with his decision. Doris wakes up with a hangover, sits down on the other couch, finds the cause of the dried white liquid—a tipped-over glass of milk—and bursts out laughing. At that very moment, Robert returns home from his night out and comments on the chaos in the apartment: “Looking for something…?” Doris and Robert know they still love each other and kiss. A plumber accidentally tears down the wall into the Brenneis apartment, and the master plumber calls his employee an idiot. The “new” Brenneis takes it all in stride and invites the workers in for a schnapps. During the film’s end credits, the cast and crew take turns dancing the tango.