Based on an autobiographical novel by Eginald Schlattner, the film paints Felix as an idealist and fledgling poet, carried away by abstract concepts of transcendent truth that could apply to a wide spectrum of ideologies; he hardly grasps the real world — one suspects he might just as easily have become a Hitler Youth if born a couple of decades earlier. Human relationships also loom mysterious for him, a confusion exacerbated by his repressed homosexuality: He loses his girlfriend (Ioana Iacob) through his inability or unwillingness to sleep with her, but also rejects the overtures of a handsome blond fellow-poet (Peter Nitzsche) with whom he shares a bed.
Lacking understanding of realpolitik, of why he's been arrested or what his captors want, he fails to notice that his cellmate (Andi Vasluianu, excellent), a young worker imprisoned for appropriating his boss' bottle of vodka, is surreptitiously if reluctantly scribbling notes on everything he says. Felix's cluelessness plays into his captors' hands, increasing the effectiveness of their demoralizing techniques, including sleep deprivation.
At first he resists, casting himself in the role of the valiant defender of truth. But gradually the unaccustomed hardships rattle him into obeying blindly, signing transcripts of testimony without reading them. The true coup is administered by Major Blau (Udo Schenk in a tour de force perf), a German-speaking Jew whose genuine revolutionary idealism and utopian vision, delivered with paternalistic military authority, soon have Felix giving authorities much more than he intended.
Lacking understanding of realpolitik, of why he's been arrested or what his captors want, he fails to notice that his cellmate (Andi Vasluianu, excellent), a young worker imprisoned for appropriating his boss' bottle of vodka, is surreptitiously if reluctantly scribbling notes on everything he says. Felix's cluelessness plays into his captors' hands, increasing the effectiveness of their demoralizing techniques, including sleep deprivation.
At first he resists, casting himself in the role of the valiant defender of truth. But gradually the unaccustomed hardships rattle him into obeying blindly, signing transcripts of testimony without reading them. The true coup is administered by Major Blau (Udo Schenk in a tour de force perf), a German-speaking Jew whose genuine revolutionary idealism and utopian vision, delivered with paternalistic military authority, soon have Felix giving authorities much more than he intended.