A politically astute portrait of a woman, Edda, and of a city, Berlin, Redupers pushes patriarchical society up against the Wall. Edda (played by Helke Sander herself), a freelance photojournalist living in West Berlin with her daughter, has, between the drudgery of career and home, become a "reduced personality." When Edda joins a group of women photographers working on a government commission to document Berlin, she broaches subjects beyond the "women's issues" the sponsors expect. The resulting show is a disturbing vision that depicts a city sub-divided by political and economic inequities. With cunning wit, director Sander presents the Wall as a monolithic but not impregnable backdrop, its presence registering as institutionalized schizophrenia. To negotiate the workaday world, Edda divides herself into multiple personae; in the larger social sphere, factions, genders and interests further the schism. But with hopeful irony, Redupers views this cultural barrier as a thing "with holes in it." --Steve Seid