Kinderfilm (1985)

Kinderfilm picks up on the structure and themes of Grelles Licht. Near the beginning of the collage Schreiner and his future wife Maria are sitting in an Italian landscape, and she's translating from the Divine Comedy (he's learning the language; Italy will subsequently evolve in to being a second important focus of interest); this is another scene emblematic for the time it takes to give this labour of love adequate room and resonance. The corresponding refusal to break up and condense the moment is characteristic of Schreiner's modest refusal of commercial conventions in the name of unmediated togetherness.(...) What one wants, however, is a key issue of Schreiner's human poetry. Kinderfilm mostly moves back and forth between two groups: Children of friends, for whom the Schreiners hosted a weekly afternoon, and his graduation classmates at their ten-year reunion. Over schnitzel and beer, these average men without qualities smugly remark on their wisdom, successes, and career developments, content with being cogs in the machine and without any individual dreams left. An incredulous Schreiner looks on speechlessly, while in between, in one of his jaw-dropping interludes, there's a mesmerizing shot of a low-flying plane crossing the heavily overcast sky. These confrontations with a lifeless status quo illuminate Schreiner's understanding of alienation and his fascination for outsiders, while the marvelous children scenes serve as counterpoint, bringing back a time of endless possibilities, a time when (as Schreiner's father recalls) even the days seemed to be longer.