No Place To Go (Die Unberuehrbare)

Running time: N/A

Hanna is a wig wielding, Lenin loving, novelist torn between her conflicting ideals and the new realities of a changing society. Although full of love for life, people and philosophy, her world is a shambles. She is not only estranged from her husband and lover but also from her only son. Living as a fish out of water in Munich, West Germany, her pro-communist sympathies have cost her a writing career, as well as the posh life she once had. The fall of the Berlin Wall provides Hanna with possibilities for a new beginning. She heads to East Berlin in hopes of uniting with a lost lover and the people who lived the Lenin ideals for which she has sacrificed and to which she has remained committed. But, instead of finding immediate simpatico, she discovers a realm full of surprises. She seems more disconnected than ever and desperately in need of human connections. Trapped--with literally no place to go--Hanna must fashion a new perspective on life, on philosophy and on love. Based on writer-director Oskar Roehler's real-life mother, No Place to Go is a beautiful and haunting film filled with incredible imagery and an awesome performance by beloved German actress Hannelore Elsner. The film's incredible black and white photography highlights the stark emptiness of Hanna's life and fate as the Wall falls and Germany uneasily reunites. --Ed Soohoo