Winter Journey

"Flotsam: A child has drowned. His parents, Ruth and Karl, sit at the beach and wait for the body to be washed ashore. Their misery should have left them speechless, but they talk compulsively, without interruption, tormentingly. Werner (the son from Silent Night) is a manufacturer of cold cuts, Peter (in Winter Journey) is in the furniture business. Two sucessful Germans. 'Ice cold' is their favourite expression, they want to be ice cold, they have to be, in their struggle for their careers. But they are nervous, sentimental, sick to their stomachs; the personification of a bad conscience ... in Flotsam, Silent Night and Winter Journey, Mueller and his characters have moved up in some way - from the world of the lost, the anti-social, up into the small- and career-minded bourgeoise.» (Die Zeit)