It was the last day before summer break, in the year when life turned upside down and Jule and Jan fell in love.
An indie song played on the radio as the engine started. Golden yellow fields sped past them in seconds as the van drove along the country roads, and the longer they stared into the landscape, the more blurred they became at the edges. A moment ago they were strangers; united by fate, now they were traveling together – both with a mission in mind and the uncertainty of what lay ahead. Away from Germany, down to Belgium, France, Spain and Portugal. The stars twinkling above them at night, a light breeze blowing through the vehicle as soon as they rolled down the windows and stretched their arms out, sunrises and sunsets passing them by.
hey discussed economics and the mores of Stone Age people, what love really meant and why physical closeness alone didn’t make a relationship in the long run. Jan emphasized that he had been afraid to let himself get close since his last relationship, but he already knew that Jule had already managed to climb over his built-up wall. The air was soft, it was dry and crackling. Again and again they pushed away the thought of getting closer to the other. He looked at her, unsure what she thought.
Sometimes they were loud, fooling around with each other, sometimes they didn’t say a word to each other, even though countless missiles were bursting inside them. They just put their heads back and agreed; that maybe the other understood one better than all the others. True, people were born alone and died alone, but there was this moment that when you were with the right person, the universe revolved only around you and you didn’t want to be anywhere else. You were exactly right where you were. A home feeling. To have arrived. No matter where. From then on, time slowed down, they both wondered why they always felt everything at once.
The longing to get closer and leave everything behind was so strong that it almost tore them apart, but there was so much in between – there were too many reasons why it shouldn’t be. And while they worry about what might happen when they reach their goals, they realize that the end is not the point at all. It’s only the way that matters. They felt the way they had wanted to feel all their lives: exuberant, awake, in the thick of things, and immortal. They looked at each other and there was nothing more to say before life began and the experiences they shared burned into their memories.
If you’re a traveler, if there’s a fire burning in your heart, if you’d call any place on earth “home” but none of them can give you enough, if you’re always looking for what’s next, and if you believe that the other part of your soul is out there somewhere, watch this film which is the perfect German answer to “Before Sunrise” and you’ll find that a small but wonderful piece of life is sitting beside you.
