The Drifter

Greta: 40, an architect, mother of a 12-year-old son, separated
from her husband, recently unemployed. She starts working in
a call center but is soon dismissed once again. She does everything
in her power to keep hanging on in there, starts drinking
and drifts through the city, torn between the pressure to confirm
and the spirit of contradiction.


"A Woman Under the Influence", in Berlin at the beginning of the
21st century. The so-called New Berlin, moving from the wastelands
to the town houses. Flexible, globalized capitalism. Postfeminism.
And the respective vocabulary that goes with it: fragments
of theory, empty phrases, buzz words, quotes. A woman
with a vision of urban space, of herself, of her profession, of her
life with her child.

But those aren′t the actual circumstances.
Greta at parties, at the call center, at sessions with a job application
coach, with her son, with her ex-colleagues, at the job center,
at bars, walking through the city. Fierce, hysterical, stubborn,
almost in a trance, fractious, uninhibited, effusive, desperately
unhappy. Situations, encounters, performances. More of a trip
than a narrative. Snap-shots of a woman′s fragile contemporary
life (at work). A flexible woman, an All-Around Reduced Personality.

Birgit Kohler

Source: 60. Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin (Catalogue)