Among the films that hit Berlin this summer, two of them received a great deal of attention: Quentin Tarantino's fetishist, furious and fun-addicted Nazi-killing Inglorious Bastards and Lars von Trier's eerie, disturbing and sexually explicit Antichrist. But as these two attention-grabbers attracted slews of people, a German production was also running in theatres, its modest poster conspicuously different from the pompous and menacing advertisements that accompany the former films, though the story it tells is just as compelling.

On the face of it, director Maren Ade's Alle Anderen cannot be more different from the two previously mentioned films. There is neither fanfare nor fantasy, neither shooting nor CGI, but a straightforward, low-key story of a young German couple on holiday in Sardinia.

The bombastic opening scene helps you realise, however, that Alle Anderen will not be average, light-hearted romantic fare, and leaves you with the nagging feeling that things will not go smoothly between the red-haired Giti (Birgit Minichmayr), a PR staffer at a record label and her architect boyfriend, Chris (Lars Eidinger).

We are first introduced to fiery and spirited Giti in the midst of a rather embarrassing vocal confrontation with her boyfriend Chris' four-year old niece at a posh holiday villa in the countryside. At once odd and shocking, the spat, which ends in Giti falling into the family pool pretending to have been shot dead by the offensive child while the entire family, including her boyfriend, watch on in horror, does much to define the relationship between the two main characters as fundamentally at odds. While Giti is outspoken, uninhibited and perhaps even a little eccentric for a thirty-something woman, Chris is conversely a more uptight and anxious character. Throughout the film, his manner of speech and behaviour reveals him as an unsympathetically worrisome and brooding man, unsure of himself and discouraged by his unspectacular career. Though Giti tries to comfort and encourage him to become more of a risk-taker, he angrily resists her affection, proving that his character flaws are more than skin deep.

This dynamic of unease keeps building as Giti struggles to accommodate Chris' personal dissatisfactions, and Chris becomes decreasingly able to deal with Giti’s optimistic nature. After a chance run in, the couple’s simmering and personal conflict takes human form in Chris' old friend from college, Hans (Hans-Jochen Wagner), and his wife, Sana (Nicole Marischka), who are invited to dinner at their place.

Hans, who has gone on to become a successful architect after college, is expecting a child with Sana, a fashion designer. Besides their apparent success, what sets the two couples apart most is the way Hans and Sana contentedly fulfil and interact according to traditional gender roles, without any of the angst or discomfort which plague Giti and Chris. The chauvinistic, dominant, showy Hans makes jokes about Sana, who as the understanding, tolerant and demur female, smiles and declares her love for her husband.

Both Giti and Chris are caught unprepared by the way Hans and Sana conduct their relationship but cannot help measuring themselves against the eerily well functioning couple. Chris, who feels like a failure compared to Hans, wants to emulate him by imitating his machismo and confidence, yet unwittingly humiliates Giti along the way. Giti is at once repelled by the bourgeois couple and curious about Sana's feminine, tender character that appears to work so well in their relationship. After their dinner is over, both of them feel slightly shaken and decide to change some things about themselves: Chris, to become more "manly" and professionally aggressive, and Giti to become more "girly" so as to please Chris. Chris takes on an otherwise mundane assignment to refurnish a villa with unforeseen energy in order to prove his ambition; Giti buys a brown polka-dot dress, applies more make-up than usual—both of them painfully unaware that this is not going to work at all. In one of the film’s most intense scenes, the two lovers hike up a steep, stony mountain while we witness how far they have now grown apart. Chris runs uphill acting chauvinistic and impatient, caring little about Giti, who tiredly follows behind with a heavy backpack on her back. When they reach a flat area and she unpacks it to reveal a sumptuous picnic complete with champagne, Chris remains unmoved and curtly asks, "You don't expect me to get drunk here, do you?" Everything goes downhill from there.

When unexpected problems arise at the end of the film, everyone but Giti and Chris knows the reasons. We know where they have erred, but we feel helpless at the same time and easily empathize with their situation. Such is love, and in unreservedly showing us the tribulations that couples go through, portraying the fatal stubbornness and foolishness that come with it, and nonetheless attaching a faint sign of hope to the film's open-ended finale, the observant Maren Ade proves that she understands the details of human relationship. Three years of hard work have culminated in her economical but heart-wrenching second film which won the silver bear Special Jury Prize at this year's Berlin Film Festival. Birgit Minichmayr, who also won the silver for Best Actress at the festival, gives an outstanding performance and her repartee with Lars Eidinger as Chris is especially gripping. Alle Anderen clearly has everything to be just as worthwhile as Inglorious Basterds or Antichrist. But it has one thing more that makes it wonderful: it is human, and real.