Breitensee begins as an observation of the working hours of soldiers on night duty in the barracks and it ends as an obituary on the ecstasy of the after hours in a famous club in Berlin in intense red light. A discontinuous formal structure, employing the means of documentary cinema, experimental cinema and classical narrative, is used to explore the imaginary of youth trapped between its desire for money and its desire for love. Unable to resolve the paradox at the very heart of their lives, the characters are drawn towards drugs, prostitution and small time crime. However, beyond the level of narration, Breitensee constantly reflects on the aesthetic possibilities of cinema itself, departing from the ground zero of cinematic truth: an exploration of the production of identities and the indifference between fiction and reality. Once set into belief the fictional characters are used to obtain different perspectives on the reoccurring matrix of (capitalist) exchange. Towards the end the movie develops a visual analogy to minimal music: a sketch of the city of Berlin inspired by the late Einstürzende Neubauten.