CLEANING AND CLEANSING tells of the glamor and misery of hygiene. Without resorting to interviews or explanatory off-camera commentary, it stages its subject in a way that can be experienced by the senses. In doing so, it follows an analytical approach that thematizes hygiene as an order of the „healthy“ and the „harmful“, which is reflected in institutions, architectures and production processes and regulates human behavior. The filmthus raises a topic that has been central to our society since the beginning of modernity: the optimization and improvement of life, which – if pursued with too much commitment and carelessly – can quickly turn against itself.