Herzsprung (1992)

The small town of Herzsprung lies on the A24 motorway from Berlin toward Hamburg and Rostock. The film begins in a large commercial kitchen, where geese are being prepared for sale. It is the period after reunification, and everything is coming apart. Russian soldiers are leaving, businesses are closing, and people are losing their jobs. Among them is Johanna, who until recently had been plucking geese with her coworkers. On her way home, she meets a Black stranger who has just made a deal with some Russian soldiers. Since he sold his bicycle in the course of the deal, she gives him a ride as far as the railway station in Herzsprung. Her husband Jan has been thrown off balance by unemployment and has fallen into alcoholism. One day, while she is lying in the bathtub, she hears gunshots from the nearby cattle barn. She runs there at once, still in her bathrobe, and finds Jan, who has shot all the cattle and then himself. After the funeral, she gets a boy from the village who loves her, nicknamed Soljanka, to take her on his motorcycle to her friend Lisa’s hair salon. Then, with her hair freshly dyed red, she and Lisa go into town to dance. Elsa, her older former coworker, who occasionally looks after Johanna’s two children, is asked by Johanna’s widowed father, Jakob, whether they should live together. Since Elsa does not want to keep living alone, she agrees to give it a try. Johanna’s friend Lisa also fulfills a long-held dream. She shows Johanna the essentials of her trade, hands the hair salon over to her, and sets off south to seek her fortune by the sea. One day, the Black stranger comes looking for Johanna in Herzsprung and finds her. She falls in love with him, and he finds work at a snack stand by the motorway. Soljanka, who wants Johanna for himself, has joined with his friends to form a group that espouses right-wing views in more than just its outward appearance. He is outraged that Johanna has fallen in love with a foreigner. To get the man out of the way, he sets fire to the snack stand at the rest stop, ties the stranger to a tree, and threatens him by throwing knives. What Soljanka does not know is that Johanna is inside the burning snack stand, from which she manages to escape. When he blindly throws a knife at the man tied to the tree, he unintentionally kills Johanna, who had stepped in front of her beloved to protect him.