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"But if you want to live like I do," is the title of this portrait of a punk, a refuser, and a system denier, for whom the GDR, just before its dissolution, showed no understanding, had no place.
A child of divorce, a troubled marriage, "a shitty time," as Michael's mother notes in hindsight. A few childhood photos show a handsome boy; then we meet the adult man styling his pink mohawk: a punk in 1987/88.
The film "But if you want to live like I do" confronts us with a biography that did not exist in the official self-image of the GDR: defiant, defensive, indifferent towards authorities, regulated work, and feelings. Zero interest in anything. But then Michael is indeed holding his baby in his arms. He wants to go over to the West, just away from the "spiritual subjugation," as he says. The explosive power lies in the assertion of saying I. (Directed by the four-person collective Dzuiba, Panse, Thierlein, Oelschlägel)
