Coming to terms with their own mobility

This dual interest in the material and fantasy worlds of his characters underscores Petzold’s engagement in transformational change: changes to individuals’ desires, dreams and fantasies amid our neoliberal moment. Individuals are recast at the molecular level as they, as he puts it, “become economic.” This becoming economic often entails a refashioning and refunctioning of an individuals’ desire in the direction of some material interest. But such refashioned desire does not dwell on some lack – his characters do not sit around pining – but rather becomes in Petzold’s plots disconcertingly productive, both professionally and personally.  

Senses of Cinema: Christian Petzold