In this cinematic meditation on the utopian ideal of personal freedom without responsibility, German director Jan Speckenbach tests the moral possibilities of human disassociation and anonymity as a path to existential enlightenment.
This intriguing but ultimately overly ambiguous experiment with the meaning of independence centers on Nora (Johanna Wokaleck) and her seemingly spontaneous decision to leave the confines of her upper-middle-class life in cosmopolitan Berlin living with her hubby, high-powered lawyer Phillip (Hans Jochen Wagner), and their sophisticated offspring.
Although in the beginning we really don’t know enough about her domestic situation or her own motivations for walking out on her family, initially this lack of information doesn’t really detract from her smoothly orchestrated exit from the familial status quo. As this scenario develops, Nora assumes a variety of identities, traveling to different European cities and casually sleeping with strangers as if they were just another roadside tourist attraction. Meanwhile, we get the hint that although certainly concerned with Nora’s whereabouts, her family seems to take her absence almost in stride, almost as if her leaving had been a regular occurrence—and that she would eventually just circle back to normality.
Nora eventually has to take on odd jobs—she’s a hotel maid at one point—to pay for her identity-fluid Grand Tour of the continent. Although much of the film's judgment is (refreshingly) withheld on Nora’s character and her decision to disappear from her family without a trace, Speckenbach also, in the end, can’t resist taking a moral line on the proceedings, however subtle it may be. As unsatisfying and predictable as the conclusion maybe, this is still a worthy slice of thought-provoking cinema plays with lots of lofty ideas about commitment, gender roles in society, and the deceptive nature of identity. Optional.