The State I Am In

Subtle, tense and intelligent, writer/director Petzold's film traces the life on the run of a family of German terrorists - Clara, Hans and their daughter Jeanne, a girl gifted in languages, as well she might be, given the countries where she's gone underground. Jeanne (Hummer) picks up with surfer Heinrich in Portugal only to find him working in a German burger bar when her family is forced home following discovery. Petzold traces the girl's conflict between loyalty to her parents (and its necessary corollary, silence) and the demands of her own life, expressed in her tortuous love for Heinrich. Well acted and economically directed, the film covers a plethora of ideas and reflections on generational forgiveness, the changing modes of conformity, the long reach of the past, and much else.