Inhalt

„Hilde is a photography and fashion model. And my younger sister. She was always my rival from quite an early age. Her ability to enjoy life her way was a permanent aggravation. I protected myself against Hilde in that I dismissed her as all too superficial, easily seducible and pleasure seeking. Hilde’s job concerns – to be published and admired as a model all over the place, the sheer physical work required to ensure that you are always more attractive, more transformable, more in demand and the ongoing strain of always having to shine in front of a boring audience of consumers – none of that interested me.“ (Helga Reidemeister). As she grows older, grows to understand the ruthlessness of the beauty trade, Hilde gradually sees through the hypocrisy of the whole business – and of her own life. The contradictions become all the more unbearable for her. Is this, what she let herself into all those years ago, now getting to her very being? Has consumer society pressure, so inseparably connected with the rag trade, pushed her into dependencies from which there is no escape? The luxury apartment, the flashy car, those far-too-expensive holiday trips, that public recognition of her youthful good looks? The film documents the work of a personified beauty ideal and casts a look behind the scenes of a dream career. It also brings us closer to a woman who, because of her job, usually comes across to the public as remote and aloof.