Paul deserts his squad at a roadside gas station & comes back home. His parents are on holiday in Italy, so the house is empty. Things get complicated when his older brother Max shows up w/his pretty Danish actress girlfriend, Lene. Paul lies about his AWOL status & develops an unhealthy obsession w/Lene. Stooped, sulking and completely inept in human interactions, Paul is not just another lost, wayward youth. There is something more dangerous hidden in his unmotivated actions. There is something missing in him. The post-Wall Germany's collective identity crisis & its angst is demonstrated by an unexplained, ominous explosion in the middle of the film, as they watch the plume of smoke rising in the distance from the roof in their quiet suburban town. No one knows what exactly happened. And no one believes the news media. Bungalow does an amazing job at showing the German society treading dangerous, unforeseen territory in the new millennium. #BerlinerSchule #UlrichKöhler #germancinema