Little Angel

Something of a caged bird, Ramona (Lothar) works in a lipstick factory and lives alone near the Ostkreuz station in East Berlin. One day a stranger, Andrzej (Pazura), grabs and kisses her. He's a Pole working the black market, avoiding the police. Ramona sees him again, then some more. She becomes pregnant, and happy - then she loses the baby. Something of a downer, this quiet, sombre film has its heart in the right place, but never finds the devices to engage its audience. Given that the protagonist is (apparently) psychologically unbalanced, the realist method (writer/director Helke Misselwitz has a documentary background) of slowly recording her ups and downs isn't enough to help us get inside her head. A sense of helpless Central European melancholia percolates through, but as drama it's all too grey and worthy.