bite the hand that feeds you.
Clinical Romance
DE 2013, 62min, DCP 5.1
“I love you”, was the last thing she said to her husband Hans-Otto before she moved out of their home in the suburbs and left him to himself. Ten years have passed, the swimming pool is empty, weeds grow out of every crevice, and the cellar is crammed with boxes, old appliances and small parts Hans-Otto keeps just in case. You never know what Granddad’s glasses might still be good for. But gradually the hermit realises that this house needs the orderly touch of a woman, or more precisely: his wife. He calls Claudia and she comes. But can a relationship be unthawed that was impossible even then?
The basic differences between the two seem to have grown: he lives completely in the past, she in the future. They take the plunge anyway and start to tidy up. Their middle-class suburban home becomes the stage of an intimate chamber play full of tragicomic verbal duels. But the gestures and looks, which the camera doesn’t miss, say more than a thousand words, inscribed as they are with their common story, a positively prototypical story of a marriage in which there are many persistent misunderstandings and injuries – but also the unfulfilled desire to be there for another human being.
- Lars Meyer, DOK Leipzig 2013
Clinical Romance was my diploma film from the KHM and had its World Premiere at DOK LEIPZIG 2013, Competition. It won the Astra Award for the best Student Film in Sibiu, RO and was shown on a number of Festivals around the world.