Cloud 9

It’s that old story of boy meets girl, boy falls in love with girl, girl falls for another boy, girl has illicit sexual relationship with other boy, original boy finds out and goes berserk, girl is then forced to choose between her heart, head and groin. That’s Andreas Dresen’s poignant, lightly philosophical and beautifully performed ‘Cloud 9’ in a nutshell, though it should be noted that all the ‘boys and girl’ are of pensionable age. And while the intricate sex lives of elderly, working-class German suburbanites may not get box-office bells ringing, there’s as much moral intrigue, erotic tension and heart-wrenching passion here as in any cheap romance populated by lithe, hormonal teenagers.

Ursula Werner plays Inge, a prudent, sixtysomething hausfrau living in a dreary flat with her train-fancying partner of 30 years, Werner (Horst Rehberg). The spark of their relationship has definitely expired, which is why Inge has been secretly bedding down with Karl, a sunnier local man ten years her senior. Though it’s Inge’s choices that are central to the film, the emotions of all three are dealt with in depth. Yet Inge’s journey from guilt-free bed-hopping to shattering existential meltdown does take precedence. This film about the resilience and adaptability of the human body will inevitably draw comparisons between this and Fassbinder’s harrowing ‘Fear Eats the Soul’. But where that film explored the social context of an amour fou, ‘Cloud 9’ tells of an enclosed tragedy, one in which human contact is scarce and older people are expected to shuffle gracefully, sensibly and sexlessly to the grave.