An Uneasy Feeling...

Something I just remembered from my first day of research that I have only mentioned in passing at the beginning of my blog:

Near the end of that day, I was waiting at the Albers Platz to see, if it was really true that the prostitutes' work day started at 8pm sharp. The rain was getting heavier now and I found shelter under one of the big sun umbrellas they had put up to keep the beer benches from getting wet. I looked at my watch and at 7.58pm they did come out and started to line up all over the Albers Platz and the other streets in the restricted area they are allowed to stay in. You can see that on the photo here:

It is basically a square area, in which the prostitutes are allowed to go about their business.

But basically what happened is that after about five minutes there was this man, white hair, probably in his late fifties, grey suit, who started a conversation with one of them and it lasted for a couple of minutes. To me, it seemed quite interesting. She kept talking to him and he appeared to consider going with her, maybe...I don't know...but that's what it looked like. Then he left her and started walking down towards the Reeperbahn and I became curious to see what he would do or where he would go.

So I got up, despite the rain, and started following him...which is something that I had never really done before: to deliberately pick out somebody from the crowd and just go wherever they went, observe them and see what they are up to. This, to be honest, made me feel really uneasy. It feeled like I was doing something forbidden in a certain way. I mean, how would I feel, if was picked out by somebody who all of a sudden started following me? Or maybe this has already happened a couple of times and I just didn't notice?...Paranoia creeping up my back now :) ...

My 'chase' turned out to be totally harmless, though. The guy passed the line of prostitutes at the Reeperbahn, went past the currywurst stand, past the police station, crossed the street and basically left the 'Kiez' (what St. Pauli is called here). Soon, I also lost interest in him, as he basically left my 'area' of research. Nonetheless, the fact that I followed him for a couple of minutes left me with that uneasy feeling and it took me a while to get rid of it...

It also reminded me a lot of Chris Nolan's debut film, which ironically is called Following. I watched it again afterwards and that uneasy feeling once in a while came back creeping up my neck, I have to say.

If you're interested, I found the film on google videos for free to watch. Here's the link: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6618880831029867065#

And here's the trailer:



In conclusion, even though Chris Nolan has dipped into that subject already, maybe it might also be an element I could use for my screenplay...