A group of young slackers spend most of their time hanging out in front of a Munich apartment building. When a Greek immigrant named Jorgos moves in, however, their aimless lives are shaken up. Soon, new tensions arise both within the group and with Jorgos.
Acting
Schygulla's devastating stillness
Direction
Ruthless Brechtian distance
Writing
Dialogue like broken glass
Director
Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Fassbinder shot this in nine days for roughly $8,000, stealing electricity from street lamps. The title is Bavarian slang for 'cat-mason' — a crude term for foreign workers.
Made months before the Berlin Wall fell? No — 1969, but eerily prophetic about Gastarbeiter tensions. Fassbinder later admitted he understood nothing about Greek immigrants when he wrote it.
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