Schwestern oder Die Balance des Glücks (1979)

Maria and Anna Sundermann are two sisters who are completely different in temperament and in what they want from life. Maria, considerably older than the two, is driven and hopes to climb the career ladder in her job as Mr. Münzinger’s chief secretary. Her younger sister Anna, by contrast, seems more fragile and introverted. She is a student, yet full of doubts. Maria supports Anna, but also pushes her and tries to influence her character; she cannot understand Anna’s constant self-doubt and fears. Anna’s rebellions against her older sister’s dominance are barely noticeable: she broods and threatens to drop out of her studies, takes pills, and keeps a diary about everything troubling her deep inside. One day, Anna can no longer withstand this inner pressure, which threatens to overwhelm her. After Maria’s love for Maurice, Münzinger’s son, threatens to distance her emotionally from Anna as well, Anna—afraid that Maria’s love for Maurice will make her lose her footing in life—decides to take the ultimate, drastic step and takes her own life. After a brief moment of shock, Maria takes the initiative again and, as one would expect of her, takes charge. She “replaces” her dead sister and hires the young Miriam Grau as a stenotypist at her side. But her attempt to turn Miriam into a second, a new Anna, fails. It has to fail. For, as the title suggests, the balance of happiness has been shattered for the time being by Anna’s death, although Maria’s way of daring to make a fresh start also holds an opportunity—one that will not be found in Miriam. This young woman, who discovers Anna’s diaries and realizes the dangerous, indeed impossible, role she was being pushed into, frees herself from this emotional construct in which she could never have been more than a substitute. Maria is left alone. Now she acknowledges her feelings and begins, for the first time, to grieve and to change herself instead of others, as she has until now. Only now does Maria truly begin to free herself as well.