Chris Knipp
03-10-2013, 08:13 PM
Baran bo Odar: THE SILENCE (2010)
http://img37.imageshack.us/img37/835/dasletzteschweigen.jpeg
The loneliness of the uncaught killer
The Swiss-born, 33-year-old Baran bo Odar's second feature The Silence is another cool, intense entry in the rolls of the new German cinema. Though it's been frequently compared to various police procedural and crime TV series, it's well calculated to hold you on the edge of your seat for nearly two hours, without a moment's interruption. It's not so much about crime as about pain, longing and guilt, the loneliness of the uncaught killer whose accomplice has gone straight and faded away -- but not lost his shared sick obsession. The characters are a bit pushed at times, but the acting (by a cast who've served some of the best recent German language films) is so good you forget that. Likewise the suspense is so intense you don't notice it's not about who or what but about coming apart and trying not to. Narrative structure and editing bind together two crimes 23 years apart, the victims, the perpetrators, and the investigators. I love the new German cinema! Recommended.
To begin with we witness the 1986 rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl called Pia in a hayfield, caught riding her bike along a country road, in the summertime. There are two pedophile predators in a red car. Only one commits the double crime. The other sits in the car, a horrified witness, understanding the temptation behind the attack, perhaps, but not the violence. He also watches from the car while the other man dumps the corpse in a lake. The body is found in the lake long afterward, but the crime is never solved. From time to time flashbacks show how the killer, Peer Sommer (Danish star Ulrich Thomsen) and his pedophile friend and passive accomplice Timo Friedrich (Wotan Wilke Möhring) met, shared pedo porno, and hung out. Peer hasn't gone anywhere. Timo has relocated, married, taken his wife's name, had a kid (male), become a successful architect.
In 2008, it's the same day in July, and the same location. When we see another young girl, 13-year-old Sinikka (Anna-Lena Klenke), at home arguing with her parents and then running out on her bike at night, we fear the worst. She disappears, right where Pia was raped and murdered.
As A.O. Scott rightly points out (http://movies.nytimes.com/2013/03/08/movies/the-silence-written-and-directed-by-baran-bo-odar.html), there is some type-casting in the almost-retired cop Krischan Mittich (Burghart Klaussner of The White Ribbon) still obsessed with the unsolved murder, who barges in and gets kicked out by the new head detective, the contrast between the cool disciplined killer Peer Sommer and his weak, guilty accomplice, and the nearly unhinged younger detective (Sebastian Blomberg) who's half crazy with grief over his wife's recent death yet is, of course, the only one who figures it all out, though he can't get listened to. But I loved the neat intercutting between encounters -- between Sommer and the long-lost Timo, Krischan and Pia's stoical mother Elena Lange (the excellent Katrin Sass), who also hasn't gone anywhere, while the cops investigate, argue, and fight. We get a strong sense of how much the corollary victims, Sinikka's parents (Karoline Eichhorn and Roeland Wiesnekker0, suffer and their relationship is turn apart. One has a nice sense of interwoven events quickly unfolding. There's an undercurrent of hysteria, but some, like the original killer, aren't even breaking a sweat, and it's all muted, while we simmer. The relationship between the two girls' disappearances that forms the subject of the source novel by Jan Costin Wagner adapted by the director remains in the foreground, yet mysterious, all the way through.
Das letzte Sweigen ("The Last Mention"), 111 mins, debuted at Munich July 2010, then showed at Locarno and other festivals. It opened in France (as Il était une fois un meutre) April 2011 (fair reviews: Allociné (http://www.allocine.fr/film/fichefilm-180728/critiques/presse/#pressreview20019191) press 2.9/16 reviews); came out in the UK last October (rave (http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/oct/27/the-silence-film-review) from the Guardian's Peter Bradshaw). Limited US release began Mar. 8, 2013. Screened for this review at Cinema Village, New York, Mar. 10, 2013.
http://img37.imageshack.us/img37/835/dasletzteschweigen.jpeg
The loneliness of the uncaught killer
The Swiss-born, 33-year-old Baran bo Odar's second feature The Silence is another cool, intense entry in the rolls of the new German cinema. Though it's been frequently compared to various police procedural and crime TV series, it's well calculated to hold you on the edge of your seat for nearly two hours, without a moment's interruption. It's not so much about crime as about pain, longing and guilt, the loneliness of the uncaught killer whose accomplice has gone straight and faded away -- but not lost his shared sick obsession. The characters are a bit pushed at times, but the acting (by a cast who've served some of the best recent German language films) is so good you forget that. Likewise the suspense is so intense you don't notice it's not about who or what but about coming apart and trying not to. Narrative structure and editing bind together two crimes 23 years apart, the victims, the perpetrators, and the investigators. I love the new German cinema! Recommended.
To begin with we witness the 1986 rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl called Pia in a hayfield, caught riding her bike along a country road, in the summertime. There are two pedophile predators in a red car. Only one commits the double crime. The other sits in the car, a horrified witness, understanding the temptation behind the attack, perhaps, but not the violence. He also watches from the car while the other man dumps the corpse in a lake. The body is found in the lake long afterward, but the crime is never solved. From time to time flashbacks show how the killer, Peer Sommer (Danish star Ulrich Thomsen) and his pedophile friend and passive accomplice Timo Friedrich (Wotan Wilke Möhring) met, shared pedo porno, and hung out. Peer hasn't gone anywhere. Timo has relocated, married, taken his wife's name, had a kid (male), become a successful architect.
In 2008, it's the same day in July, and the same location. When we see another young girl, 13-year-old Sinikka (Anna-Lena Klenke), at home arguing with her parents and then running out on her bike at night, we fear the worst. She disappears, right where Pia was raped and murdered.
As A.O. Scott rightly points out (http://movies.nytimes.com/2013/03/08/movies/the-silence-written-and-directed-by-baran-bo-odar.html), there is some type-casting in the almost-retired cop Krischan Mittich (Burghart Klaussner of The White Ribbon) still obsessed with the unsolved murder, who barges in and gets kicked out by the new head detective, the contrast between the cool disciplined killer Peer Sommer and his weak, guilty accomplice, and the nearly unhinged younger detective (Sebastian Blomberg) who's half crazy with grief over his wife's recent death yet is, of course, the only one who figures it all out, though he can't get listened to. But I loved the neat intercutting between encounters -- between Sommer and the long-lost Timo, Krischan and Pia's stoical mother Elena Lange (the excellent Katrin Sass), who also hasn't gone anywhere, while the cops investigate, argue, and fight. We get a strong sense of how much the corollary victims, Sinikka's parents (Karoline Eichhorn and Roeland Wiesnekker0, suffer and their relationship is turn apart. One has a nice sense of interwoven events quickly unfolding. There's an undercurrent of hysteria, but some, like the original killer, aren't even breaking a sweat, and it's all muted, while we simmer. The relationship between the two girls' disappearances that forms the subject of the source novel by Jan Costin Wagner adapted by the director remains in the foreground, yet mysterious, all the way through.
Das letzte Sweigen ("The Last Mention"), 111 mins, debuted at Munich July 2010, then showed at Locarno and other festivals. It opened in France (as Il était une fois un meutre) April 2011 (fair reviews: Allociné (http://www.allocine.fr/film/fichefilm-180728/critiques/presse/#pressreview20019191) press 2.9/16 reviews); came out in the UK last October (rave (http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/oct/27/the-silence-film-review) from the Guardian's Peter Bradshaw). Limited US release began Mar. 8, 2013. Screened for this review at Cinema Village, New York, Mar. 10, 2013.