Roman has just taken up a position as a draftsman at an architect’s office in Cologne; he is about to experience his first carnival. Although he is initially rather reserved, he nevertheless decides to go to a Shrove Tuesday carnival party thrown by his colleagues. After a few beers, he begins to loosen up and even starts to flirt with an attractive young woman on the dance floor. He steps outside for a breath of fresh air – a move which ends in catastrophe. Roman becomes involved in a fight between an underage pickpocket and the two men whose wallets he has stolen. Roman helps the men catch the thief, only to watch on in horror as the aggrieved men brutally beat up the child in a corner. After this dreadful incident,Wolf,Roman’s colleague, decides to send Roman home;Wolf asks Stella, the pretty girl from the dance floor, to accompany Roman.The two enjoy a night of passionate lovemaking. The next morning, Stella has disappeared. Roman sets off in search of her and winds up back at the bar and, eventually, at the scene of the fight. He makes an horrific discovery: there, in between the dustbins, lies the dead body of the young pickpocket. Roman feels as if he was a perpetrator of this dreadful crime. For this reason he decides not to tell the police that he was witness to the attack on the boy. From this point onwards he finds himself caught up in a fatal, surrealistic odyssey. Plagued by nightmares, he rushes headlong into the carnival, searching desperately for somebody who can rid him of his feelings of guilt– to no avail. When he happens to run into Stella again, he realises that she must be the young pickpocket’s sister. Left alone with his fears, Roman develops a lunatic psychosis which distorts his perception of things. In a desperate attempt to be rid of the burden of guilt, he gets hold of the dead body of the pickpocket and takes it home with him… —Berlinale
