A movie about what remains when hope disappears
In a village that has no center, in a country that is still searching for itself, two boys stand on the edge of their childhood and gaze into a nothingness that seems like the landscape: vast, overgrown, seemingly meaningless – and yet full of history. With Punching the world with her fistConstanze Klaue succeeds in making a touching, unembellished film about origins, powerlessness and the deep scars that the post-reunification period has left in many East German biographies.
Two brothers. One landscape. A feeling of being lost.
Philipp and Tobias grow up in provincial East Germany in the early 2000s. What begins with the dream of owning their own home turns into a construction site that lasts for years – not only in stone, but also in people’s hearts. The father loses his job, the mother fights against stagnation. And the children? They lose faith that things will get better one day.
The world they live in is characterized by emptiness, a lack of prospects and a creeping retreat into the inner world. While Philipp finds an outlet for his anger in the right-wing scene, Tobi becomes a resistance fighter – not out of political awareness, but out of an urgent desire to finally be seen.
The East that you can’t see – but can feel
Klaue tells this film from a perspective that is still too rare in German cinema: from the inside. Her characters are not stereotypes, but fragile people with longing, pride, anger and vulnerability. They are children “from the building site”, as she herself writes – not only in the literal sense, but also in the social sense.
The East German narrative, often reduced to economic statistics or voting behavior, is finally given a face here. A young, angry, vulnerable face. Klaue interweaves the private with the political without ever wagging a moral finger. Instead, she opens up a space for empathy – not for ideologies, but for biographies.
Nature as solace, the landscape as a mirror
The images in the film are as raw as they are poetic. Yellow rapeseed fields flicker in the summer light, turquoise-colored quarries invite you to take a leap into the unknown. And yet: the beauty does not hide what can be seen in the minds and bodies of the people. It is the sparseness, the unfinished, that makes this film so honest. Klaue does not show a backdrop, she shows an inner landscape. One in which home is no longer a promise, but a reminder of what could have been.
A movie that doesn’t explain – but tells
Klaue avoids clichés and dispenses with clear-cut perpetrators and victims. No one is just “right” or “left”, no one is simply good or bad. Instead, it shows how radicalization often arises not from conviction, but from a lack: of recognition, of orientation, of alternatives. The film does not shout – it whispers. And that is precisely where its power lies.
The art of remembering without transfiguring
“I want people to leave the movie theater with empathy”
says Constanze Klaue. And this wish is fulfilled. Punching the World with a Fist is not a political manifesto or an educational drama. It is a sensitive film about what remains when a country reinvents itself – and leaves many behind in the process.
Why this movie is important now
In times when right-wing slogans are becoming louder again and rifts in society are deepening, this film shows how this can happen – not in an apologetic way, but in an explanatory way. It makes visible what often remains hidden: the biographies behind the statistics, the souls behind the headlines.
It is a plea to listen, to look, to remember. And for the realization that the past does not fade away – but continues to have an effect.
About the author
Kinga Bartczak advises, coaches and writes on female empowerment, new work culture, organizational development, systemic coaching and personal branding. She is also the managing director of UnternehmerRebellen GmbH and publisher of the FemalExperts magazine .
