In
Broken Glass Park – the central, glass-strewn area of an incredibly depressing, ugly high-rise estate somewhere on the edge of a large German city – the winds blow harsher than elsewhere, and when it rains the damp goes deeper to the bone. Sascha has a big mouth, and is also fearless and incredibly shrewd, yet she is struggling to come to terms with a hugely traumatic experience – the murder of her mother. Sascha knows only too well who is responsible. All she could do was watch as her stepfather Vadim E. aimed a pistol at her mother and emptied its magazine into her body. Vadim E. is in prison, but this is no consolation for Sascha. When she’s alone, she curses the day he was born and hopes he dies a slow and painful death. One day, she reads an article in the local paper which depicts her stepfather as a reformed sinner and she decides that enough is enough. The paper’s chief editor Volker Trebur (Ulrich Noethen) gets to feel the full force of Sascha’s rage. There is no doubt, however, that he sincerely regrets what has happened. He tells Sascha that she can ring him anytime she feels like she can’t go on. She takes Volker at his word and comes hurtling into a milieu that contrasts starkly with her own. The newspaper editor’s educated, middle-class universe functions according to an entirely different set of rules than those found in
Broken Glass Park, and Sascha could quite easily escape her world and make herself at home in this comfortable refuge. But escaping isn’t Sascha’s style at all. At some point, Sascha decides that she can’t keep walking a tightrope between two worlds. She must find her direction in life all by herself, even if it means taking a detour or two. After all, as the saying goes: you get to see more of life if you take a detour here and there.
Bettina Blümner, Germany, 2011/12, 91 Min.
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