Kairos

During another trip to the Baltic, Ingrid comments on the banning of Soviet periodicals. Hans frequently escapes from his family to meet with Katharina in a nearby town.

Rather than celebrate the anniversary of the day they met, Hans starts to commemorate Katharina’s departure for Frankfurt and the significant events that followed. Katharina begins her studies at art school. On the anniversary of their wedding, Hans asks whether Katharina has remained in contact with Vadim. Katharina admits to speaking with him once, though she also feels that Hans is the one relitigating Vadim’s presence over their relationship, not her. Hans reminds her of their shared desire to have a child, which moves them both to tears.

The following week, Hans celebrates the anniversary of their last night together before she had gone to sleep at Vadim’s. Katharina loudly denies Hans’s accusations against her at the restaurant. She finds it ridiculous that Hans must celebrate their unhappiness. She also resents the fact that she must continue to assert that her diary writings were always exclusively about Hans and never about Vadim.

When Hans visits her apartment at the end of that summer, Katharina disobeys every one of his instructions for their date. She takes control of their sexual activity, forcing him to arouse her only on her terms. Several days later, Katharina visits Hans at his studio and sees that he is visibly shaken. He claims that he has just met Vadim, who told him that Katharina had sex with him multiple times, not just once. Katharina vehemently denies this. It is only when Hans is convinced of her denial that he admits that he had made up the story of meeting Vadim.

Katharina listens to Hans’s fourth cassette tape, in which he expresses his resolve to stay in their relationship. He believes that Katharina will be cowed by the pressure of art school to abandon him. He criticizes Katharina’s lack of moral discipline and urges her to examine whether she really loves him enough to have a child with him. Katharina finds Hans’s words terrifying and difficult to bear.

Katharina’s friend Torsten announces that his request to leave East Germany has been approved. He wants to escape military service so that he can pursue his studies in dentistry. They talk over the phone one last time, during which Torsten encourages her to listen to Richard Wagner’s opera Tannhäuser and teases her for sinning too passionately.

In November, Hans tells Katharina that he wants to do what she wants, which is for him to hit her. Katharina realizes that this is no longer like the sex game they used to play. They both earnestly hate themselves and each other. Hans only stops hitting Katharina when he notices that she is crying.

Hans promises to supply the fifth cassette after he receives Katharina’s response to the fourth one. He also indicates that he will talk to Ingrid again. This fills Katharina with a sense of futility. Her father helps her to schedule a therapy appointment for Hans. As 1988 ends, Hans keeps his distance from Katharina. Katharina spends more time with her classmate, Rosa.

Hans goes to therapy, where he and the psychologist discuss the work of poet Friedrich Hölderlin. Hans offers his theory over why Hölderlin abandoned the use of first-person perspective in his work, which has to do with the poet’s disillusionment with the French Revolution and the new society inspired by the Jacobins.

While waiting for Hans to finish his session, Katharina reflects on the past year and how she has failed to change Hans’s brutal treatment of her. As she thinks about the distance from their first night together, as well as her promise to be honest with him at all times, she wonders how she can truthfully deny her unhappiness. She has hoped for Ingrid to maintain her relationship with Hans, fearing that Hans would feel burdened moving in with Katharina. At one point, Hans expressed that he was tired of recording new tapes for Katharina. Katharina urged him to complete the next one, having nothing else to represent their love. She hopes that his therapy session will bring about a miracle. When he arrives, he shares that he and the psychologist talked about Hölderlin.

Katharina and Hans pass the first anniversary of the night she had sex with Vadim. They both express their desire to die and try to simulate what they would look like as corpses for each other’s benefit. At dinner, Hans gives Katharina the fifth cassette.

On the fifth cassette, Hans describes himself splitting in two Hanses. The first Hans trusted Katharina unconditionally while the second Hans had some suspicions but did not act on them. After Katharina’s infidelity, Hans can no longer trust in the first Hans, let alone reconcile the two versions. He accuses Katharina of being able to cope with the second Hans’s suspicions. Hans declares that over the past year, he has not been litigating what happened with her, but reliving its experience day by day.

Katharina resigns herself to the reality that Hans will use everything she says or does against her.

Katharina has distanced herself from her friend group, each person having gone their own way. Rosa is the only person in whom she confides her relationship with Hans. Rosa registers Katharina’s despair. After a night of sex, Rosa suggests that two people in a relationship can never fully know each other. Everything about them must be compatible, however, including that which remains a mystery. Katharina laments that Hans will never find the truth he says he is looking for in her. She adds that she doesn’t know what she wants for herself and whether that means she still exists as a person. Rosa gets Katharina to acknowledge that she wants to kiss her. She suggests leaving Hans, but Katharina still loves him.

Katharina tells Hans about Rosa, and he is more curious than angry about the idea of them having sex. He indicates that he isn’t bothered but moved to know that she has a “little friend.”

Unrest grows in East Germany as the economy becomes increasingly unstable. The government doubles down on its censorship policies, leading to concerned discussions among Hans’s friends and colleagues.

Katharina expresses her belief that Hans doesn’t love her anymore. Hans reflects on this while giving a reading in Dresden and uses the trip to imagine life without her. He writes to her to say that he can look past what happened in Frankfurt and that he will not record any more cassette tapes. When they reunite, they enjoy a pleasant day together, which reminds them of their first days together. Katharina is so happy that she remains in a good mood during the local government elections two weeks later. The election is widely believed to have been rigged in favor of the candidates endorsed by the ruling party. This triggers a public meeting of German youth organization members, who are disconnected from the old generation.

Katharina writes notes on her happiness as a gift for Hans. When Hans and his family visit the Baltic, Katharina waits for him again in a nearby town. She writes separate notes to purge her negative feelings, revealing that she doubts Hans’s forgiveness. She has no assurance that their happy time is not an illusion.

On his way to see Katharina, Hans recalls how his mother brought him to a bomb shelter when the town they were in was being attacked. He also thinks about how tanks have maintained their presence in the world ever since the end of World War II, continuing to roll over perceived enemies as recently as the Tiananmen Square massacre. Hans and Ingrid were appalled by the death toll but unsure what to think of its motivations. Soon after, the border between Hungary and Austria opened, triggering an influx of East German refugees.

Hans shares a dream of being in Frankfurt with Katharina and Vadim. Katharina is dumbfounded.

In August, Katharina writes a letter to Hans to express her uncertainty about the state of their relationship. Several weeks later, Hans responds by withdrawing from the monthly celebration of their anniversary. He promises to record another cassette tape. Katharina cannot help but see the cyclical arc of their relationship. She recalls a play she has seen about the French Revolution, during which her father commented that none of the revolutionary figures depicted had really affected the economic circumstances of the poor. Violence distracted them from assessing the progress toward their goals.

In October, the Ganymede announces its closing date, and Hans and Katharina attend to commemorate their first date there. All of the staff have resigned, however, leaving the restaurant to stand as a wreck of its former self. Katharina takes a coat hook number as a keepsake.