FRG 1980 | Director, Script, Camera: Elfi Mikesch | Editors: Elfi Mikesch, Renate Merck, Anke Rixa Hansen | Music: Gysel, Traute Hagelstein | Sound: Katharina Ross, Anke-Rixa Hansen | Production: Oh Muvie Film | Colour and b/w | DCP | 108 min | german OV with english SUB | Stiftung Deutsche Kinemathek

Documentary film about a retirement home in Hamburg whose formal design is innovative in many respects. The title is a quote from the conversations between the two main protagonists. Another quote: "We deserve to still be alive.... We both know that we love each other."

“The film visualises the natural context in which the old women's lives are situated and which is also on their minds: it interrupts the presentation of the interior spaces with a view of the river Alster, with shots of the garden and close-ups of its jungle-like plants, with a recurring view through treetops into the sky. There is no feeling of confinement. The stormy weather that pervades the film almost from the start is important for the sense of openness that it conveys in connection with concepts of nature – countering the depicted limitations of age and confines of death. Isolated cracks of thunder, images of a sultry summer day, a roaring in the air, waving treetops announce the thunderstorm long before it breaks out – at the same moment that the old woman who wishes to die passes away. The announcement of her death reaches us along with a feeling of relief, as heavy rain falls and breaks the oppressiveness.” (Karola Gramann, Heide Schlüpmann, 1982)