“The homeless are so lost … so vulnerable,” security guard Hans once said of the refugees in the dormitories, among which he made his rounds shift after shift. A small, inconspicuous key sentence in Thomas Stuber’s new film “The Silent Trabants” – in two senses. On the one hand, it sounds like a self-admission: because in this film everyone is basically lost in their own way. And vulnerable anyway. Even if they try to keep their composure.
The watchman’s small gesture of sympathy at the edge of the night also tells of a transformation. Because Hans used to think differently about foreigners, he says. Viewers have met him before. In the prologue of the film, the only part that takes place exclusively in daylight – albeit cloudy. As the head of a team of road workers, Hans witnessed the death of a refugee girl. “In a German forest. Today there are only wind turbines.”
“The Quiet Trabants” is already the fourth collaboration between director Thomas Stuber and writer Clemens Meyer. The screenplay was written together, based on stories by Meyer. After the short film “Of Dogs and Horses” and the two feature films “Herbert” and “In the gangs” it has again become a film about “simple” people. No pathetic middle-class people. But the inconspicuous. The laborers, snack bar owners, cleaning staff and night shift workers who make ends meet with cheap wages and fall out of the daily rhythm of the masses. They are characters from the outskirts of the big cities, where urban ways of life don’t reach or can’t be paid for.
In a quiet episodic drama with an excellent ensemble, Thomas Stuber interweaves several chance encounters. As with “Herbert” and “In the gangs” before, the film is set in Leipzig, where Stuber and Meyer live. But East Germany is only a setting, not so much a topic. The night, on the other hand, has a leading role again. In it, the hard-working people wander around as delicate, lonely and life-wounded beings, meet and approach each other. A brief glow in the dark that makes you forget the heaviness of everyday life.
Furtive glances at night, that’s all that’s allowed
Christa (Martina Gedeck) cleans trains for the train at night and seeks solace with a schnapps in the station bar “Gleis 8” after work, until one evening the hairdresser Birgitt (Nastassja Kinski) is sitting at the next table. The promise of a new happiness that will not last long. In the prefabricated building opposite, bistro operator Jens (Albrecht Schuch) falls unhappily in love with his neighbor Aischa (Lilith Stangenberg) over a late-night cigarette on the balcony of the stairwell. Night after night, the two smoke, stare at the city lights, and exchange furtive glances.
More is not allowed. Aisha converted to Islam and is married to Hamed. It remains an unfulfilled love. The lonely security guard Erik (Charly Hübner) feels the same way. Like his colleague Hans, he makes his way through the dormitories of the refugees every night with his nameless shepherd dog and develops feelings for the young Russian Marika (Irina Starshenbaum). All are turning losers in one way or another. Nonetheless, their stories are universal. Three loosely linked episodes from the melancholy of the night that have one thing in common: the desire for affection and happiness.
Clemens Meyer and Thomas Stuber are a good team. In his stories, Meyer has a feeling for the complex emotional worlds of the people in the satellite towns. And Stuber finds suitable pictures for it. For him, dreary everyday scenes become places of hidden beauty. The landing in the prefabricated building, the brisk train station hall, the sports field next to the refugee accommodation – in Stuber’s films there is room for longing, dreams, rapprochement and hope. In the light of the night they are enchanted places.
The silent satellites, Germany 2022 – Director: Thomas Stuber. Book: Clemens Meyer, Thomas Stuber. Camera: Peter Matjasko. With: Martina Gedeck, Nastassja Kinski, Albrecht Schuch, Lilith Stangenberg, Adel Bencherif, Charly Hübner, Irina Starshenbaum, Peter Kurth. Warner Bros., 120 minutes. Theatrical release: 01.12.2022