Ottomar Domnick′s experimental feature film is a portrait of the print shop employee Jonas who lives in a large city and suffers from feelings of guilt and fear for his existence. When he finds a hat that bears the initials of a friend that he left during the war when he fled from a detention camp, his sense of guilt becomes a severe paranoia.
Cinematography
Shadow-drenched Frankfurt streets become psychological landscape.
Direction
Domnick's only feature—every frame screams singular vision.
Sound
Sparse design amplifies Jonas's internal silence.
Director
Ottomar Domnick
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
One of the first German films to explicitly address lingering Nazi-era guilt, predating the New Wave by years.
Robert Graf later played the charming radio operator in The Great Escape—imagine casting directors seeing this first.
DE
