Die dritte Generation

Plot synopsis:
P.J. Lurz, an industrialist with an office in a Berlin high-rise, informs his American headquarters that the company has difficulty selling its security-related computer systems to the West German government in Bonn. Nevertheless Lurz has hatched a secret plan to boost sales. Meanwhile Susanne, Lurz’s secretary, receives a phone call with the message: The world as will and idea. This is a code phrase among a secret group of thirty-something middle-class leftists and would-be terrorists to which she belongs. The phrase has been taken from the central work of the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation. With these words, Susanne sets an ambiguous covert plot into motion, alerting the members of the terrorist cell of an upcoming meeting. They are: August Brem, the ringleader; Susanne's composer husband Edgar; feminist history professor Hilde Krieger; Petra Vielhabor, a housewife who is constantly arguing with her banker husband Hans; and Rudolf Mann, a clerk in a record store.
P.J. Lurz is informed by Gerhard Gast, the inspector-general of the police, that he is being watched and is under police protection. Gast has also arrived to pick up Susanne, his daughter-in-law. En route to their home, Susanne and Gerhard stop at a hotel room and have sex. They have been carrying on an affair with sado-masochistic undertones. The Gast family has dinner together: Gerhardt, Susanne, her husband Edgar, the caustic grandfather, the delusional pianist grandmother and the young couple’s small son. During dinner Grandpa Gast tells Edgar that every generation needs a war.
The terrorists gather at Rudolf’s large apartment, but August is annoyed by the presence of Rudolf’s roommate Ilse Hoffman, a drug addict. August sees her as a threat to their secret activities. Bored and with not much to do, the group spend their time playing Monopoly. They eagerly await the arrival of a new contact. His name is Paul; he arrives from training camps in Africa where he has gained experience. Paul is assigned to live with Hilde. He rapes her, however by the following day they have become a couple.
August Brem, the leader among the terrorists, is in fact a double agent. He is secretly in contact with Lurz, who wants to boost sales of his security computers by financing the terrorist group. Rudolf’s apartment serves as the terrorist headquarters and meeting point. Claiming domestic abuse, Petra leaves her husband and decides to stay with Rudolf. The group of terrorists is completed with the arrival of two friends of Ilse. One is her former boyfriend, Franz Walsh, a beefy black German who is an explosives expert recently discharged from the military. The other is his friend Bernhard von Stein, an aristocrat whose fondness for the works of Bakunin makes him the object of jokes. Franz fails to find a job but reconnects with his drug addict girlfriend Ilse.
Times are tense and get even worse when Paul is gunned down by the authorities at a restaurant. Edgar witnesses his death and sees his father, Officer Gast, at the scene. Paul’s death scares the members of his gang. In order to finance their activities, Petra and some of the other terrorists rob the very bank in which Petra’s husband works. While they are escaping, Petra shoots and kills her husband. They frantically change their looks and names and flee from their homes. August gives out paper squares to the group. Some have a mark and some don’t. Petra, Rudolf and Hilde get the marks and have to break into an office at night in order to steal the new identities. Rudolf is so scared that he pees in his pants and the others laugh at him. The joke is short-lived because Franz finds Ilse dead of a drug overdose.
Bernhard is interrogated by Officer Gast as to their whereabouts. Bernhard genuinely does not know but gets curious and follows August undetected. He sees Lurz give money to August in order to finance the terrorist activities. After Paul's death, the terrorists believe that there is a traitor among them. August makes the others think that it was Franz. August sets up Franz by telling him where Ilse is buried. He then calls the authorities and gets him killed. August also does the same to Petra when she is instructed to place a bomb and gets intercepted and killed by the police. Bernhard is caught by Officer Gast at the cemetery when he tries to warn Franz that it is a set-up and tells him not to go to Ilse’s grave. Bernhard tells Officer Gast what he saw at the Japanese restaurant; after they argue, Bernhard falls down a long flight of stairs and is killed. The remaining terrorists, taking advantage of the carnival season to wear elaborate costumes as disguises, kidnap P.J. Lurz. He is videotaped in a basement. He still believes that all is part of his secret plan and smiles to the camera.

Tags: violence, avant garde, satire, murder

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