Runaway Horse (Ein Fliehendes Pferd)
Established middle-aged couple Helmut and Sabine have been vacationing at the same resort for the past twelve years. She swims and soaks up the sun, while he reads or goes bird watching, then they spend time together dining. It’s a familiar routine, much like their marriage.
But when they run into Klaus, an old school-friend of Helmut’s, who is travelling with a young, sensuous and inexplicably besotted girlfriend, Helmut ends up feeling emasculated and demoralised.
Klaus admits to Helmut that Sabine can see right through him, but this doesn’t calm Helmut’s growing unease with his wife’s apparent responsiveness towards Klaus’s slick but shallow charm. Klaus is hardly an attractive man, but then again, Sabine has been deprived of attention of late. It seems that Helmut’s cerebral and sublimated existence has left her wanting. Meanwhile, she can’t help but notice the way Helmut looks at Klaus’s girlfriend.
Can their marriage withstand this sudden onslaught of temptation that has swept into their lives? Are men like runaway horses, who need to feel free? Will anyone in the audience see Klaus as the stallion that he and the women in this film seem to think he is?
Runaway Horse isn’t a hilarious comedy, but it nevertheless presents a wry take on the grass is greener theme.