The Silence

Baran bo Odar's film begins almost wordlessly on a sunny day in 1986. Two men driving along in a red car (Ulrich Thomsen, Wotan Wilke Möhring) encounter a young girl riding a bicycle (Helene Doppler). They pursue her into a cornfield where one of the men rapes her, kills her with a blow to the head and dumps her corpse in an adjacent lake.

Fast forward to 2009, and one of the two men (Möhring) has become a successful architect, married with two children, while the other (Thomsen) works full-time as a caretaker. The memory of that traumatic occasion haunts both of them, creating a complicated web of lies, deceit and implication that leads to the murder of another young girl (Anna-Lena Klenke).

The film's title not only refers to the silence practiced by the perpetrators of the original crime in 1986, but also describes other people's state of mind. For twenty-three years the murdered girl's mother (Katrin Sass) has kept silent about her harrowing ordeal; likewise the police inspector (Burghart Klaussner) who was involved in the original investigation but failed to achieve a result. It is only after this lengthy time-lapse that they decide to come out and voice their feelings, as well as trying to reconcile themselves to what happened in the past.

Shot in garishly bright colors (by Nikolaus Summerer) creating a world of apparently endless summer weather that nonetheless appears highly dystopian, THE SILENCE offers an insight into the pedophile mind, which often thinks it is doing nothing wrong, even while taking a perverted pleasure in watching child porn videos. The film also takes a look at the ways in which such people are allowed to flourish in societies that prefer to turn their collective backs on such unpleasant issues in the belief that everyone is fundamentally well-intentioned. bo Odar's film proves precisely the opposite; it is often the outwardly most respectable people that prove the most dangerous.

When the bicycle of a 13-year-old Sinikka is discovered in the exact same wheat field where a heinous murder/rape took place 23 years prior, retired police detective Krischan senses that the two crimes are connected, and vows to bring the killer to justice. The fact that Krischan was unable to catch the killer two decades prior still haunts him to this very day, but perhaps with the help of ambitious young officer David, this time he will find a way to bring closure to the case. Later, as the investigation begins and a sweltering summer heat wave washes over the town, the young victim's parents begin to experience an overwhelming sense of dread concerning a clean cut husband and father who had recently visited their home.

This slow-paced thriller is stunning by all means. The characterization is very well done and cinematography is amazing showing the semi-rural countryside of Germany, the camera angles are fantastic explaining many things about the characters.

The narration is amazing because it has so many ends to tie and agony of the characters has been portrayed impeccably. The direction is watertight; everything is well placed and told significantly.

An original thriller from Swiss born Baran bo Odar, kudos to him.

Recommended to quality cinema lovers.

8/10

In 1986, an 11 year old girl Pia is raped and murdered in a wheat field near a small German town by one man while another watched. Her bicycle was left in the field and the killer was never found. The man who watched takes off after the murder. Twenty three years later, 13 year old Sinikka Weghamm goes missing after the local fair. Her bicycle is found at the site of Pia murder.

This is another dark psychological crime thriller. It is a good representation of the ugliness amidst the normal everyday society. The dark subject matter is normal for these types of movies nowadays. It would be shocking 20 years ago. Today, it's on network TV. The actors do a fine depicting these characters under stress. It remains intriguing until the end.

THE SILENCE is a German murder mystery that's heavily indebted to two separate sources: firstly, the whole look and mood of the currently-popular Scandinavian cop shows (such as THE KILLING), from which the style of music is frequently ripped off (like that whole thing with a single, deep note held for a while). Meanwhile, the plot and police investigation bear more than a hint of the exceptional South Korean drama, MEMORIES OF MURDER.

What follows is predictable but occasionally highly gripping, and strangely enough different sub-plots in the movie have different levels of interest. I admit that I found the whole police investigation to be pretty dull; there isn't actually much investigating taking place, and it all seems very slow and stately. The scenes of grieving parents are so familiar by now that they didn't affect me at all.

A second, alternate part of the film follows the friendship between two men, one of whom is a paedophile and murderer. This part of the film is exceptionally, dealing with dodgy subject matter in an intensely gripping way. Ulrich Thomsen (from THE THING remake) and Wotan Wilke Mohring are both very good here, and I would have much preferred the whole film to concentrate on these two by doing away with the predictable police stuff altogether. However, what we're left with is a real film of two halves; one's powerful stuff indeed, and the other's best forgotten.

I saw this for the first time recently n got pleasantly surprised.

Fans of Marshland, True Detective S1 n S3, The Treatment, Memories of Murder, etc will definitely enjoy this.

In 1986 an 11-year-old schoolgirl, is raped and murdered by Peer Sommer while his friend Timo watches silently from the passenger seat of his car.

Timo leaves after Pia's murder, to Sommer's dismay.

In 2009, exactly 23 years later, a 13-year-old girl goes missing and her bicycle is discovered in the same spot where the first crime happened.

Senior detective Mittich, who investigated the original murder takes an interest in the new case, but he is blocked from participating by the new senior detective.

At times the movie is very poignant considering so many characters are shattered n everyone gave good performances.

But Wotan Wilke Möhring who played Timo gave an outstanding performance.

I wud have easily rated it a 9 but for two reasons i didn't.

The 1982 murder was never solved for us audiences.

And why did the cops didnt try to locate the phone's location of Sinikka? She was carrying a phone n when her dad tried calling her, the killer threw the phone.