Tussilago

The West German terrorist Norbert Kröcher was arrested on March 31, 1977 in Stockholm, as the leader of a group planning to kidnap Swedish government minister Anna-Greta Leijon. More arrests followed, including that of Kröcher's Swedish ex-girlfriend A. Twenty-three years later, in a long monologue, A. tells how this arrest was a determining factor in her life. "I never thought it would end so badly." German filmmaker Jonas Odell has turned A.'s story into a colorful, inventive graphic experience, in which colors, surfaces and pixels tumble friskily over one another. Thanks to this playful application of rotoscoping - a technique that converts live action images into animation - Odell is able to turn this sad story into a documentary that can be watched like a cartoon. And, like in a cartoon - in which events can be much more gruesome than the cheerful images might suggest - A.'s reconstruction of what started out as an innocent bit of flirting and ended in a nightmare lasting decades, is sharply conveyed by the originality of the images onscreen. Where possible, Odell has also included graphical jokes, such as the use of 1970s typeface and a nod to the motorcyclists in the film .