O Happy Day - Heiße Teens aus gutem Haus (1970)

Anna is a lively, alert 17-year-old from Munich, curious about everything to do with her developing sexuality. In the nun’s Latin class at the convent school, her only thought is the much more important question of “whether nuns are actually real women.” After class, Anna gets a ride home from the family chauffeur. Her good mood and zest for life are written all over her face: during the drive, as she obviously flirts with the chauffeur, who keeps glancing at her in the rear-view mirror, the famous gospel song “Oh Happy Day” is playing. Anna comes from a wealthy family. Her father is a busy building contractor, and her mother is as fond of luxury as she is emotionally distant. She gives the impression that her own appearance and yoga exercises matter more to her than her daughter. Everything is supposed to be going smoothly, and yet the teenager is confused: no longer quite a girl, but not yet quite a woman. Anna’s boyfriend Robert, a few years older and handsome in every way, awakens sexual desire in her, but it goes unfulfilled. He seems strangely inhibited and reserved. He takes her to FC Bayern Munich games, but feels overwhelmed when she tries to talk to him about her needs. Everything is swirling around in Anna’s head, and many things confuse her. In a dream sequence, even the chauffeur gets very close to her: lustful and desirous, touching her. He embodies everything Robert does not yet dare to do—both alluring and threatening. Her parents are no help, either. Their daughter is expected above all to function and cause no problems. Rather than having conversations, they prefer to throw money around. Keeping up appearances is everything. When the potential business partner Siemsen is invited over, Anna has to play her part once again and help maintain the illusion of a happy, intact family. Her bedroom is about the only place where she can rebel: with its psychedelic pop-art pieces, it seems like a deliberate contrast, a counterpoint to the respectable, bourgeois world her parents inhabit. After a nocturnal odyssey that takes her to a hippie commune that has set up camp on one of her father’s construction sites, she promptly ends up at a police station. The ensuing talk with her parents leads no more to anything meaningful than her first night of sex with boyfriend Robert in a hotel room bed. By the end, Anna has grown more mature and adult, but she still has no idea where her life will lead.