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Laramie Movie Scope:
Cloud 9

A stark love triangle among senior citizens with sex and frontal nudity

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by Patrick Ivers, Film Critic
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(2008; Wolke 9, German) In her late 60s, Inge Lindner (Ursula Werner) must choose between bearing the internal pain of living a lie with Werner (Horst Rehberg), the man she's been with for 30 years, who helped her with raising her daughter after her marriage ended, or bear the irreversible consequences of telling him the truth. Her daughter Petra (Steffi Kühnert), happy for her mother's newfound love, recommends the former: "We won't tell anyone."

Leaving the soundtrack devoid of a score - the choir in which Inge sings provides the only music accompanying the drama - director Andreas Dresen co-wrote the screenplay of this stark love triangle among senior citizens with Jörg Hauschild, Laila Stieler, and Cooky Ziesche in which sex and frontal nudity of elderly bodies occurs.

Dropping off a pair of trousers she's fitted for Karl Danneberg (Horst Westphal), Inge accepts his invitation into the apartment where they embrace, kiss, and go to bed. She returns to Werner, caressing him as he takes a bath. When Karl comes over with a request for her to make alterations of a jacket, she declines, turning him away.

She compares her flaccid flesh in a mirror with youthful photographs of herself. Following a visit with his invalid father in a nursing home, Werner asks Inge to shoot him if he gets to be in such a morbid condition.

Along with entertaining the two grandchildren, Werner smokes cigarettes and has an enthusiasm for trains, while Karl enjoys bicycling or walking through the natural landscape with wind turbines in the background. On the next Sunday, while Werner goes away to see his son, Inge resumes her affair with Karl.

When he fails to rise to the occasion, at 76 possessing a more cheerful personality than Werner, he tells Inge a joke about how 80-year-olds, lacking an erection, nevertheless manage to screw.

Unable to contain the pretense any longer, Inge confesses her infidelity ("It just happened") to Werner ("You just live for the moment"). She'd always hoped she'd fall in love again, but perhaps, she reconsiders, she's too old for this. Verbally abusive, Werner, emotionally distraught, turns on her as she attempts to apologize; she seeks the warm embrace and affection of the only man who'd given her the eye in decades.

Click here for links to places to buy or rent this movie in video and/or DVD format, or to buy the soundtrack, posters, books, even used videos, games, electronics and lots of other stuff. I suggest you shop at least two of these places before buying anything. Prices seem to vary continuously. For more information on this film, click on this link to The Internet Movie Database. Type in the name of the movie in the search box and press enter. You will be able to find background information on the film, the actors, and links to much more information.

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Copyright © 2011 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.
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Patrick Ivers can be reached via e-mail at nora's email address at juno. [Mailer button: image of letter and envelope]

(If you e-mail me with a question about this or any other movie or review, please mention the name of the movie you are asking the question about, otherwise I may have no way of knowing which film you are referring to)