Rudiger Vogler plays a dull, young man who still lives with his mother. He wishes to be a writer, and his mother gives him a push at it when she kicks him out, forcing him to experience the world on his own. This is kind of an abstract narrative. Vogler drifts along picking up new companions, who then accompany him and chat with him on long walks. It's interesting at first, but, frankly, the talk gets pretty boring after a while and it never really goes anywhere. A visual cue in the very first scene should have tipped me off about what I was getting into: William Faulkner's sophomore novel, Mosquitoes, is propped up in an awkward position against a wall so we're sure to see it. Not many people have read that one, and for good reason: it isn't any good. But it follows a very similar structure, as it's about a group of banal people who talk a lot. The story itself is purportedly based on a Goethe novel. Hanna Schygulla and a very young and adorable Natassja Kinski co-star (I kind of suspected Kinski was extremely young, but she was only 14 when the film premiered and she appears topless in the film, which is quite icky).