Looping - Der lange Traum vom kurzen Glück (1981)

“Step right up, come on in!” calls a sideshow owner, ushering the viewer into the world of showpeople, where every day is a struggle for financial survival—for bare existence itself. More than a few of these travelling folk harbor a secret: the old man who pines for a young girl, for instance, and the lottery-ticket seller, who has to support a drinking wife and a dissolute daughter back home. At the center of this world of noisy, sometimes cacophonous sounds is a seasoned showman couple. He is Johnny, with his dull, fixed stare, who has the equally plump and resolute Carmen by his side, yet has long been panting after another girl, the fresh-faced young Tanja. The aging pair run a fairground booth that does poorly at best—much like their marriage. With their “Show International,” as the little outfit is euphemistically called, the estranged couple move from fairground to fairground. While Johnny already sees himself, in his mind, settled into a life with Tanja, Carmen is not (yet) ready to give up: she dreams of setting up a major amusement ride and believes that if it takes off, their marriage might get going again too. The fairground’s previous attraction was the chanteuse Inga, who is coldly replaced by Tanja, the lascivious little beast who promises better takings. The young woman seems to bring some life into Johnny’s dreary existence. As a stripper, she gets the male visitors’ hormones racing—including those of old Johnny, who has long been sexually abstinent. Carmen knows the danger lurking in Tanja’s provocative pelvic and hip movements and puts the little floozy in her place, which in turn drives Johnny to the bottle. Now that Tanja is stripping at the bumper-car arena rented for the season from fellow showman Capone, Carmen wants to fulfill a lifelong dream for herself and Johnny: the two of them are saving up for a special attraction, the Looping. Tanja, baring all, is chased across the ride floor by the bumper-car drivers as a “persecuted innocent,” while the old man has to rescue her each time in a ridiculous Superman costume, all to make the cash register ring. The whole thing is pretty ridiculous and degrading, but Tanja’s performances, with her whole body on display, finally bring in decent money for Johnny and Carmen again, which at least gives the old man something to take his mind off things as he counts the cash at night. Meanwhile, the sidelined Inga is bent on revenge. Hadn’t Johnny once, when he was younger and still told no fairy tales in Carmen’s bed at night, been as eager for Inga’s mother as he is now for the stripping Tanja? And hadn’t Carmen, back when she worked as a trick shooter, cold-bloodedly killed that mother in response? A regrettable “accident,” of course, as they claimed. The fatal shot was nothing more than a trick-shooting mishap, a tragic accident. As Carmen and Johnny take the inaugural turns on their new, expensive Looping ride, and Tanja gives one last pained smile, having just sexually heated Johnny up one more time, Inga coldly shoots the two old people in the forehead.