Junges Licht (2016)

Twelve-year-old Julian Collien, the son of a working-class family, grows up in Dortmund’s coal-mining community in the 1960s. His father, Walter (“Waller”), works underground and provides for the family. His mother, Liesel, is a housewife who is overwhelmed by dealing with her son. She regularly beats and humiliates him. After his mother suffers a nervous breakdown, she goes away to the seaside with his sister Sophie. Julian and his father are left behind in the apartment. Julian experiences his vacation in a new way. His attempts to join a gang of boys fail; later, he rescues a dog that the gang has doused with gasoline and is about to set on fire. He gets into conflict with their landlord, Konrad Gorny, who exhibits pedophilic tendencies and preys on him. The 15-year-old girl next door, Marusha, awakens Julian’s first sexual desires. One Sunday, Julian, Waller, and Marusha visit Lippek, Waller’s fellow miner, who was allegedly involved in a diamond robbery. Lippek repeatedly ignores Waller’s warnings not to pour schnapps for underage Marusha. Enjoying her apparent freedom, she provokes both men with her behavior, which particularly excites Lippek. Back home, Marusha thanks Waller for the lovely Sunday outing and promises to repay him. Soon afterward, when he comes home from the night shift to find the apartment door locked, Marusha opens her bedroom door to him and, after they have had sex, sends him out onto the balcony they share. Landlord Gorny has witnessed this and consequently gives the Collien family notice to leave the apartment by the end of the month. When mother and daughter return from their vacation, Liesel seems even more desperate than before she left. After an encounter with Marusha, she wants to take out her frustration on Julian again and reaches for the cooking spoon, but for the first time he manages to stop her. After this incident, Julian packs his things and leaves the apartment. He first rushes to the church to confess his sins, but Pastor Stürwald dismisses them as typical and harmless for his age. The pastor firmly rejects Julian’s wish to confess on someone else’s behalf, since no one can atone for another person’s actions. Later, Julian hears an alarm signal from the nearby mine. Worried, he immediately runs there to look for his father. Waller has just finished his shift and spots Julian at the factory fence. He learns that Julian is planning to run away. Resigned, he says: “Running away isn’t an option. It would be nice, but it can’t be done.”