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.

"Das letzte Schweigen" or "Das Schweigen" or "The Silence" is a German crime thriller from six years ago. The writer and director is Baran bo Odar and this was his second movie, not counting an early short film he made. I saw in his profile that he was born in Switzerland, but I am not sure about the origin of his name. It sounds a bit Danish to me, so it's fitting that Ulrich Thomsen, one of Denmark's finest actors, plays a major character in here. The film is about two child murders, one that took place almost 25 years ago and one that takes place in the now. Is it the same killer? The fact that we find out very early about what exactly happened in the past implies that it's not, but no further spoilers.

The cast includes a handful really famous names from Germany, such as Klaußner, Saß, Möhring, Blomberg, Michelsen... so it's not much of a surprise that the film got some recognition, in terms of popularity as well as awards, even if it did not get as popular as the filmmaker's most recent work "Who Am I". I personally enjoyed the watch overall. What I liked maybe most about it is that it did not take the easy route at all. Basically all the plot developments in here are not by the books at all and that includes the ending as well as the killer's motivation for his crime. Very well-done and well-written. Sadly, there are also areas when the movie is not particularly well-written. This is mostly about the characters' relationships, such as the stereotypical death of one major character's wife or the relationship between Saß' and Klaußner's character, which was pretty ridiculous, even if it had a touch of "Goodbye Lenin" to it obviously.

As a whole, I recommend the movie. For a German crime thriller, it is fairly good and way better than 90% of "Tatort" episodes. The good certainly outweighs the bad. A lot of it is due to the strong acting by basically everybody involved, even if Saß plays pretty much the same character as usual. It's especially worth seeing because it is a pretty daring film and you do not have to expect anything stereotypically bad to happen during these almost 2 hours. Thumbs up. Give it a go if you like the genre and get a chance to see it. Nicely atmospheric little movie.

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.