This German thriller is directed and written by Swiss born
Baran bo Odar and based on a novel called Das
Schwegen by Jan Costin Wagner. When The Silence (2010) opens we witness two
men sitting in a darkened apartment watching a cine film, these two men have
recently became friends while both were observing young children in a play
area. Peer Sommer and Timo Friedrich get into Perr’s car and go out for a drive;
they spot Pia an 11-year-old female, she’s cycling on a lonely country path
across a wheat field. Peer’s stops the car, chases the girl across the field
and rapes her. He then batters her head in with a rock and dispossess of the
body. Timo is a witness to the whole event but does not get out of the car
until both men arrive home. Traumatised Timo gets on a bus and leaves town. 23
years latter 13-year-old Sinnikka goes missing, her bike is discovered in the
same wheat field!
This is not just a movie about paedophilia; it’s a film
about loneliness and how an inept small town police force can put its own
personnel hang-ups before the investigation of two murders 23 years apart. It’s
the fullness of the characters that makes this film stand out from so many
other police procedurals. Firstly we have Senior Detective Krischan Mittich who
failed to solve the original case and is retiring 23 years to the day after Pia
was murdered. His obsession with solving this crime was at the detriment of his
marriage that disintegrated and left him lonely and bitter. The new murder is
being investigated by David Jahn, a man so emotionally damaged by the death of
his wife from cancer the he has only just returned to work after five months in
a treatment centre. Even now he still
suffers from fits and dresses in his dead wife’s clothes. In charge of the case
is Mittich’s replacement and great rival Matthias Grimmer an incompetent policeman
who never listens to any advice from his officers or from the man he replaced.
The other member of the team is Jana Glazer, a heavily pregnant female
detective who has a thing for Jahn and seems unable to follow her own
instincts.
The only actor I am familiar with is Ulrich Thomson who
plays the otherwise kindly caretaker Peer Sommer. He appeared in the Danish
film that won Best Foreign Language Film in the 83rd Academy awards,
In
A Better World (2010) and you might also remember him from the 2004 Danish
drama Brodre (Brothers). The acting is first rate, the cinematography
highlights the beautiful Bavarian countryside and although it may stretch
credibility a touch, it’s a powerful film that would satisfy fans of
Scandinavian crime drama.
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