The woman who disappeared in the forest

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Movie
Original title The woman who disappeared in the forest
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 2009
length 90 minutes
Rod
Director Oliver Storz
script Oliver Storz
production Regina Ziegler , Katharina Countess Lambsdorff
music Klaus Doldinger
camera Frank Bruhne
cut Heidi Handorf
occupation

The woman who disappeared in the forest is a German television film by Oliver Storz from 2009, which is set in the southern German province during the time of the economic miracle .

action

Dr. Gerd and Katharina Vorweg are the model couple of the Swabian district town Großgeldern. When the mayor's wife disappears without a trace one evening in the autumn of 1956, he was deeply concerned that his wife had just whispered “Thank you for everything” at an official appointment. The detonation of an explosive device was reported that same evening from the nearby Bone Forest , a makeshift cordoned off area that was still mined from wartime , near which the woman was last seen with her scooter. Since a search and securing of evidence in the area is impossible due to the countless scattered mines and duds, the fate of the woman remains unsettled at first. But when a shred of her coat is discovered on one of the fences in the restricted area, the suspicion is reinforced that Katharina Vorweg was killed in the explosion.

Weeks later, Vorweg is woken up in the evening by playing the piano and finds an old friend from the war days in his living room who has gained entry into the house. The landlord is happily surprised, but his counterpart doesn't really want to see them again - the man has a pistol with him. Unlike Vorweg, who had a steep career as a local politician with his own villa and swimming pool, Horst Karg never found his way back to a middle-class life after the end of the war. After he had deserted towards the end of the war , but had been picked up and, in view of the impending defeat, had been used in a punitive detachment to defuse mines, he used an explosion in which two comrades were killed to go into hiding. Without valid papers, he finally joined the Foreign Legion and later, now a French citizen , tried his hand at a pub. The war experience has never left him since he had to watch how members of his unit shot defenseless US soldiers. Although he was not involved, Karg did not dare to go into American captivity at the end of the war , as he feared he would be charged with the war crime committed by his unit. Now he blames Vorweg, who worked as a hospital doctor during the Second World War and who, despite his injuries and traumatization, did not write him unfit for war, responsible for his failed existence. First of all, he vehemently fends off his allegations, but Karg would have preferred the loss of a body part through amputation to a new frontline deployment.

In flashbacks, the film tells how Karg - as he says - initially only came to Großgeldern out of curiosity and, by chance, made the acquaintance of Katharina Vorweg. Shortly afterwards they both become lovers. After fleeing from the Red Army , in which her parents were killed, Katharina still suffers from panic attacks, which she can only have secretly treated by a local Jewish doctor for fear of talk. It is also implied that she - with the knowledge of her husband - repeated the entrepreneur Dr. Rohleder visited privately when the establishment of a textile company threatened to fail, which would have meant economic ruin beforehand. The unhappy in their marriage Katharina and the uprooted Karg dream of a future together at their secret meeting in the forest. But Katharina can not simply separate or divorce her husband, who once took her in sick and emaciated from a refugee camp , without damaging his social reputation and political career. Therefore, they forge a plan to fake their death in an accident in the Bone Forest. To do this, Karg and a French acquaintance first defuse a dud in order to then prepare and mark it accordingly. According to the plan, Katharina would then be taken away by the friend, while Karg wanted to remove any traces of treachery.

However, Karg informs in advance that Katharina must have strayed from the path and found death through a step mine. First of all, he is stunned, also whether the coolness with which Karg reports all this to him. Suddenly Katharina stands in front of the two men in the nightly living room. She reveals to them that she will neither return to her husband nor start a new life with her lover, since Karg obviously still had an account to be taken with her husband and used her, Katharina, for this purpose. From now on she will go her own way. Karg tries desperately to change her mind. When Katharina drives off alone, Karg shoots himself in the shed on the property. Ante returns to his daily work, begins a relationship with his secretary after a while and is finally presented with an award by the Federal President for his services to the emerging region. The film ends with a radiant, optimistic look ahead into the camera, which demonstratively toasts the viewer.

background

The shooting took place in Gifhorn , Lower Saxony , as well as in Leutkirch im Allgäu , Schwäbisch Gmünd , Stuttgart and Schwäbisch Hall , where director and screenwriter Oliver Storz grew up. The film, which was made in 2007, was first broadcast on April 29, 2009 in the first on the occasion of Storz's 80th birthday.

The main actors Karoline Eichhorn, Stefan Kurt and Matthias Brandt were already involved in Storz 'previous directorial work Drei Schwestern made in Germany (2006). Eichhorn and Kurt had previously stood together in front of the camera in Towards the End of the Night under his direction in 1998 .

criticism

"A relentless look at Germany's economic miracle and its repression mentality as a gloomy (television) drama developed in several flashbacks, but which overall tends to get stuck in political commentary and becomes too stereotypical as a social panorama."

- Lexicon of International Films

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The Woman Who Disappeared in the Forest in the Lexicon of International Films

Web links