Synopsis
Up-and-coming director Rosa Hannah Ziegler made this portrait of her father, who spends his days in a room, giving in to his destructive longing for cigarettes. Just like Alain Resnais's feature film (Hiroshima mon amour) from 1959 that the title refers to, this documentary was shot in black-and-white, and recollection, oblivion, longing and destruction are the dominant themes. Starting with close-ups of skin like a landscape, followed by fingers rolling a cigarette, an unshaven old man slowly appears, lying in bed like a junkie. On the soundtrack, we hear city noises. But when the man gets out of bed, puts on a bathrobe and pulls the curtains open, the camera suddenly reveals an outside world with trees in a garden where birds are singing. In a dream-like sequence, the man walks around in his bathrobe in a misty landscape with ploughed soil, followed by a close-up of an ashtray containing the scorched debris of butts. Physically, the man has not left his hiding place - he is looking at pictures on the wall. One of them displays a woman. His face is reflected in the glass. Then he closes the curtains again, goes back to bed, another cigarette between his lips and smoke around his head.