In My Room

Armin is an almost prototypical example of the modern urban male: he works in the media, uses Siri to dictate text messages, still goes clubbing and hooks up with younger women; he has the beginnings of a paunch. One day, a phone call from his father jerks him out of his Berlin reality and back to his provincial hometown, where his grandmother is on her deathbed. Now he’s the beloved son who left for the big city, expected to shoulder responsibility and navigate family tensions, until he awakens one morning to find that everyone else has vanished and he’s the only person left behind, alone in a dreary realm of anxious pets, abandoned vehicles, and all-enveloping silence. Panic gives way to despair and then to hope, as things shift once again, although this isn’t the final state. Ulrich Köhler’s fourth feature channels seemingly disparate modes into one single movement, slyly seguing between contemporary critique, family drama, post-apocalyptic fantasy, and relationship study with impossible smoothness. And the same, wonderfully slippery quality equally applies to its ultimate message: whether in the Germany of today, or in general, how much baggage is carried into each new start? (James Lattimer)

In the presence of Christoph Friedel.