The Hairdresser

Kathi is a hairdresser, good at her job, and heavy. She moves to an outer district of Berlin and looks for work. When a salon refuses to hire her because of how she looks, she decides to open her own shop. But she has no money, cannot get a loan and cannot cover the rent. In the end she takes some not entirely rule-abiding routes to raise it. Doris Dörrie's film shows a fat woman not as someone to be pitied but as someone who knows her trade and does not give up. Gabriela Maria Schmeide takes the lead and all the film's energy comes from her. The subject is discrimination by appearance, but the film does not turn that into a sermon; it goes through the daily texture of not being able to get hired. The tone sits between comedy and social drama.