'I always hoped I'd fall in love properly,' says Inge (Ursula Werner), a 67-year-old stuck in a rote marriage and a dry, joyless existence. 'But then I wasn't expecting it.' Neither are we, when Inge suddenly falls into the arms of septuagenarian Karl (Horst Westphal), a client to whom she is delivering a pair of trousers. After a round of joyful sex, she returns to her stodgy husband Werner (Horst Rehlberg), but continues to meet Karl for afternoon trysts.
For Inge, this is a rebirth of mad passion. Her marriage has settled into a stagnant routine of staring at the TV, visiting the nursing home, and babysitting the grandkids. In the mornings, she and her husband sit in their small kitchenette, the mechanical sound of percolating coffee suggesting the life being sucked out of the marriage. Needless to say, Karl's bicycle rides and skinny dips provide a stark contrast to this drab reality. When Inge finally confronts Werner about her affair, their 30-year marriage dissolves almost instantly. Inge has no defense for her actions except to tell her husband, 'Just because I'm over 60 doesn't mean I have to sit in the dumps for 20 years.' When Dresen gives us an early morning shot of the kitchen and Werner is not sitting there sipping his coffee and reading his paper, we know the marriage has come to its end.
Center stage here is Ursula Werner's courageous performance. Tasked with conveying the desire, despair, and confusion of an elderly woman who realizes this chance at happiness will probably be her last, the actress shines particularly in several emotionally devastating scenes: In one, Inge stands naked in front of a full-length mirror looking at her body before going to see Karl; in another, she tells her daughter of the affair while Dresen jump cuts to Inge's emotional highs and lows; finally, she receives a phone call about a death in the middle of the night, a moment the actress imbues with howling intensity and primal pain.
Dresen directs with sensitivity and energy. He favors tight shots of his actors, the off-camera glances and facial tics revealing the emotional turmoil of their souls. He is also unafraid to shoot elderly bodies in unapologetic sexual ecstasy. The nudity in Cloud 9 is not voyeuristic; instead, it lets the characters revel in their ecstatic passions.
Anchored by a remarkable lead performance and strong direction, Cloud 9 makes us care about three characters in a direct and violent way. It lives up to Sam Fuller's infamous description of cinema itself: 'In a word: emotion.'
Aka Wolke 9, Wolke Neun, Cloud Nine.
