Screenplay Update: Scene 50 - The Eternal Shop Window

STYLE: Surrealistic. The room has no walls. In the background, Art Nouveau shelves with fur coats float next to modern glass showcases full of diamonds. The floor is made of black marble that reflects the light like water.

CAST:

• Helmut Horten: August Diehl (in a strict, dark suit of the 30s)
• Heidi Horten: Birgit Minichmayr (in a robe that seems to consist of pure gold)

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INT. THE SPACE BETWEEN - BEYOND TIME

Helmut (Diehl) stands at a glass sales counter and polishes an invisible surface with a white cloth. Heidi (Minichmayr) steps out of the fog towards him. She wears a necklace of pearls as big as pigeon eggs.

HEIDI (smiles amusedly) Still polishing, Helmut? The world out there has long forgotten how to clean glass properly. Today everything is just... wiped away. Digitally.

HELMUT (does not look up) Precision, Heidi. A shop window must be flawless. If the customer cannot admire their own reflection in it, they will never understand that they are incomplete without the product behind it.

He sets the cloth aside and looks at her. His gaze is piercing.

HELMUT I left you an empire built on logic and silence. What have you made of it? A circus of colors and donation lists.

HEIDI (takes a deep puff from a long cigarette holder) A beautiful circus, Helmut. Silence is worth nothing today. Today you have to be so loud that people forget to ask the right questions because of all the noise. Your department stores were cathedrals of goods. I have made them into a religion of favor.

She glides her hand over a floating showcase.

HEIDI Did you know they are shredding my hard drives now? In your name. Well, actually in the name of a young man with a lot of hair and very little patience.

HELMUT (raises his eyebrows) Hard drives?

HEIDI Something like your account books, only... more vulnerable to the truth. But don't worry. I've taught them how to grind the gold so finely that it looks like dust. Pointillism, Helmut. You thought in blocks. I think in dots.

HELMUT (takes a step towards her) And the Alsbergs? The ghosts in the aisles?

HEIDI (laughs smokily) We sent them to the basement. With the Eurofighters and the Ibiza tapes. It's very crowded down there, Helmut. But up here... up here it's wonderfully bright.

She hands him a glass of champagne that appears out of nowhere.

HEIDI Drink to us. To the eternal shop window. As long as people believe they need us, this museum will never close.

Helmut takes the glass. For the first time, a shadow of a smile flits across his face.

HELMUT To market correction.

HEIDI (clinks glasses) To the aesthetics of power.

FADE TO WHITE.