Eight-year-old Matthias dreams that he will someday become a pilot and his divorced parents will get back together. He waits yearningly for his ninth birthday because his father has told him the story of Icarus, and promised to take him on a sightseeing flight. When Matthias' father doesn't come home, he is devastated. He runs throughout the city, talks to his friend about the relationships of adults, looks for his father at his desk, and gets himself into conflict with the police. As he sits alone on the roof of a house, he comes to the conclusion that Icarus didn't plummet to the earth because he didn't listen to his father, but rather because his father had forgotten him.
Acting
Peter Welz's heartbreaking restraint as abandoned Matthias.
Direction
Carow's unsentimental gaze at childhood grief.
Writing
The devastating Icarus reinterpretation.
Director
Heiner Carow
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Banned in West Germany until 1990, this was one of the few DEFA films to openly critique family breakdown under socialism.
Carow originally wanted a darker ending; the compromise rooftop scene became the film's most interpreted moment.
XG
