Wer aufgibt ist tot

A tunnel. A car overturns. Then silence. – What does all this mean? Suddenly the sales representative Paul Lohmann is confronted with his own passing. Does this car crash really mean the end? Lohmann struggles, he doesn’t want to die. After all, today was the day he wanted to hit the big time, to pick up where he left off ten years before. Salesman of the year 1999 to 2004, nobody sold more mirrors than Paul Lohmann! And now he’s going to die today because of some stupid accident.

On the other hand: Paul Lohmann still isn’t really dead, says Angie, the hitchhiker he picked up a short time beforehand. He’s in a world in between, not quite dead, but no longer really alive. In a kind of loop until his wife Edith decides at the hospital whether the machines should be turned off for a brain-dead Paul Lohmann. Lohmann wants to take advantage of this last chance. He persuades Angie, his guardian angel, to let him relive that day. He has to avoid death somehow. Once, twice, three times… but it always ends in the tunnel.

Angie really has a hard time with Paul Lohmann who just won’t let go… and continues to negotiate. This man who views his life more and more intensely and would like to change one thing or the other… because when he is honest with himself, he realizes why Edith wants to separate or why his daughter thinks so little of him. Lohmann tries to improve in little ways. His wife, his daughter, his lover, they are all surprised by a Lohmann who breaks out of his routine and says very unusual things. They have no idea that he’s fighting for his life. Or, at least, for the memory he leaves behind. Because Lohmann’s motto still hasn’t changed: You give up, you die!