Fabian. The Fall - Premiere

"I sat in a vast waiting room called Europe. Eight days later the train was to depart. I knew that. But where it was going and what would become of me, nobody knew. And now we sit in the waiting room again, and it is called Europe again! And again we don't know what will happen. We live provisionally!"

Unemployed advertising man Fabian wakes up at a popular fries stand in the metropolis after another night spent in bars. He finds himself in extraordinary circumstances. With the last war behind him and the next ones in his head, society surrenders to hedonism. "Splendid," thinks Fabian, and falls asleep again. Soon a small group gathers around the motionless young man: two neglected operators of a popular fries stand, an expert in international film law, an ambitious germanist in leather pants, the brothel keeper Frau Moll, and a communist drag queen ask him: "Young man, what now?" He wakes and replies: "Should I go or not? Why should I move forward? For what and against what? Why don't I sit at home with my mother, where one can wait for Europe's downfall just as well? What is the bullet doing in my left buttock? Who makes tea for my mother? When do we arrive and in whose company? Will there be peace when the wars are over?" Together they decide to conduct further investigations and move to the cousin's place.

Erich Kästner's 1933 metropolitan novel paints a clear-sighted portrait of a society in upheaval. With sharp wit, grotesque exaggeration, and deep melancholy, Kästner depicts Berlin of the late Weimar Republic - a world of political radicalization and moral decay, where no one is willing to listen to anyone else anymore. At the center stands young Fabian as an ironic observer who cannot act and drifts in the whirlwind of the big city.