Winterreise

In the early hours of September 25th 1940: Walter Benjamin and Lisa Fittko escape from the Fascists and find their way to Port Bou on the Spanish border. Exhausted by the arduous climb across the Pyrenees, Lisa leaves Benjamin as night sets in, intending to return the next morning in the hope of leading him over the mountains to safety.
Left on his own Benjamin suppresses his fear with morphine. He spends his last night before committing suicide in a waking dream. Images of his past haunt him: his imprisonment in Paris, the evacuation to the camps and his childhood. Benjamin realizes that he has always been an outsider. Two angels, as in Paul Klee’s drawing, face him with the choice between life and death. One promises him freedom and the chance of a new life (from which he is only a few hours away). But the other angel, Klee’s ‘Angelus Novus’, draws him closer: Benjamin can’t escape the destructive power of the angel of death.