Crazy, The Whole Life Is Crazy
Winter in Berlin. Karin, 16 and still in school, falls in love with Robert after a number of flirtations with other boys. He is older and married: she is looking for a short-cut to maturity. As Robert neglects her, Karin retreats increasingly into her own fantasy world. The diary she keeps becomes her main confidant.
Petra Haffter and Richard Claus took their story from the diary of Karin Q., excerpts from which are included in the film as off-screen narration. “The form taken by the film derives from the contrast between the more or less objective viewpoint of the filmic narration, and the purely subjective viewpoint provided by the extracts from the diary.... Film and diary run parallel to one another, and the images are never intended merely to illustrate the excerpts.... (T)he aim (is) to enable the viewer to establish connections between this girl's inner life and her external world, both psychological and social.”