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By Don Simpson
Peer (Ulrich Thomsen) and Timo (Wotan Wilke Möhring) formed a unique kinship in the 1980s for their mutual love for young girls. One day, after watching their daily dose of child pornography, Peer decides to capture a real live young girl for Timo as a special treat. Peer, however, loses control of himself and murders the girl instead -- as Timo stands by and observes. Riddled with guilt, Timo disappears.
Jump forward 23 years, a child's bicycle is discovered in the exact location of the murder committed 23 years earlier by Peer. It is discovered that a young local girl, Sinikka (Anna Lena Klenke), is missing and the townspeople and local police, particularly the ones who were around 23 years ago, scramble for explanations. Was this a sick copycat murder? Otherwise, what would have prompted the murderer from 1986 to kill again?
Making its U.S. Premiere at German Currents: New Films from Germany, writer-director Baran bo Odar's The Silence (Das Letzte Schweigen) is a very unique police procedural which dutifully contemplates the aftershocks that untimely death -- whether caused at the hands of a fellow human or due to natural causes -- has on surviving family members as well as the ramifications that violence has on a community.
(The Silence screens Oct. 23, 9:30 p.m., Aero Theatre. For more information: http://www.goethe.de/ins/us/los/prj/ger/flm/sil/enindex.htm)
