The Second Awakening of Christa Klages is Margarethe von Trotta’s first solo feature (following collaborations with her husband Volker Schlöndorff) containing thematic microcosms of her later-better-funded films: women discovering independent action; sexuality as a natural outgrowth of friendship; and the motives, objects and results of violence in a hostile world. Christa (Tina Engel) is introduced in the process-of taking a teller (Katharina Thalbach) hostage in a bank robbery, naively planned to fund a daycare nursery. She's on the run from then on, but it's a flight to discovery, aided by a lesbian relationship with an old schoolfriend, Ingrid, and the painful recognition of new values.