When aging swimming champion Johanna Perl answers an unusual personal ad in the local paper, she begins an unexpected chapter in her life. Her new love is Johannes, a failed writer some 20 years her junior. Balding and awkward, Johannes doesn't look much like a soul-mate, but nonetheless the pair falls passionately in love and soon set up house together. Meanwhile, Johanna's daughter Sophia is also embarking on her own romantic adventure (albeit of a more conventional arrangement). Initially all is bliss, but when Johannes' book becomes a best-seller and he starts an affair with his publicist, Johanna begins to lose her mind.

The quotidian activities of cooking, clipping the hedges and cleaning the house are juxtaposed with Johanna's internal monologues that traverse the Bergmanesque territory of sex, love, betrayal and death. All the great imponderables are here, addressed with provocative intelligence and maturity. The sudden introduction of a metaphysical visitation in a winter forest vaults the film into unexpected territory, but director Rudolf Thome's (Paradiso) precise construction makes this seem a natural part of Johanna's reawakening. The luminous Hannelore Elsner gives a performance as delicately nuanced as an orchid unfurling. Her portrayal of the fragile, difficult Johanna is a thing of beauty.

The VIFF gratefully acknowldges the support of the Goethe-Institut Toronto for its assistance in presenting the films from Germany.

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