"THE SECOND HEIMAT" "CHRONICLE OF A GENERATION IN 13 FILMS" "10" " The End of the Future" " Reinhard 1966" "Reinhard came back from South America a sick man." "Montezuma's revenge, the doctor called the bug... that infested his intestines." "He'd been back in Munich for 11 hours." "For a year, he'd looked at the world with a filmmaker's eyes.:" "Brazil, Peru, El Salvador, Mexico... countries that grew the cotton he'd been sent to document." "With Rob's help, he'd captured on film... everything the German chemical company wanted.:" "history, economy, technology, climate, culture." "An understandable world." "Reinhard knew how much his film left unsaid." "If only he could see his friends again." "For weeks he'd tell them of the mysteries he'd seen." "He was laden with the immensity of the world... and had no one to share his burden." "Rob, it's me." "Listen, Foxholes is gone." "Gone, disappeared without trace..." "In the phone box in Hollandstrasse." "Have you still got the camera?" "There must be some film left." "Bring it here, right now." "I must get to the bottom of this." "Why the camera?" "So I can understand what's happened, damn it!" "Right, I'll wait outside." "It's really gone, honestly." "Do you live here?" "As you see." "Can you help me?" "If you're looking for number 21... you're too late." "It's gone." "Since when?" " Since last Thursday." "In four hours they knocked the whole thing flat." "The rubble went yesterday." "Quicker than in the war, even." "With these modern machines..." "Friends of mine used to live here." "Well, we're not leaving." "We refuse to budge." "And so far, we're winning." "See that bulldozer over there?" "Like a tank about to attack?" "They want to knock our house down, too." "My wife was born here." "Next month... we're planting a hedge all the way round." "That's a promise." "You own the house?" "I wish we did." "Both of them were sold to Munich Building Enterprises." "Didn't you know?" "That's their sign on the corner." "Take a good look." "It shows the office block they want to put up over our heads." "We'll be filming here in a moment." "Can we interview you?" "For TV?" "No, a documentary." "I've put my foot in it often enough." "I'd rather not." "Do you know where the owner, Fräulein Cerphal, lives now?" "Is this part of the interview?" "All I know is she sold up." "500 marks per square metre." "Amazing, eh?" "We've already survived two eviction orders." "The greed of some people, you've no idea!" "But we're planting our hedge and that's that!" "The present... the future." "Let's try and get some shots that remind us of the house." "Look." "Look at that." "It's incredible." "Here!" "So you want to push it aside, or install it right here, or..." "And the gate!" "Reinhard." "What will a pan tell us?" "Let me tell you what I see, okay?" "I see a felled tree... three oil tanks... a TV aerial on the ground... a cellar wall..." "And now somebody's in the way." "Rob!" "Speculation!" "Devastation!" "The spirits of the place banished and driven away." "The ancients believed in that." "Every place has its gods." "If they're angered... they turn nasty!" " And you want to use this as commentary?" "It's what I want to capture." "The house has gone, as though it's been stolen." "Even the space it took up has gone." " The space." "You can't put space on film." "See for yourself." "All this bloody glass eye can do is goggle." "No hope, no feeling..." "Nothing is stupider than a camera." "You're right." "There's almost nothing to remind us of Foxholes." "The villa was so much bigger than this hole!" "It couldn't have fitted in here." "Hang on." "One, two, three, four..." "Impossible." "Just 130 square meters!" "That's nothing." "Just a hut." "Reinhard, our villa was a hut." "It's impossible, isn't it?" "It's those goddamn cramps again." "What did the doctor say?" "Montezuma's revenge." " What?" "Come on, lie down." "Rob, is it you?" "You're back!" "Is Reinhard here, too?" " Yes, in a moment." "Reinhard, Hermann's here." "Is that your kid?" "Yes, that's Lulu." "I don't believe it." " Did you know it was gone?" "It's been boarded up for months." "No curtains in the windows." "I tried to find out what they did with the piano, but I couldn't get in." "It's tearing my guts apart." " Fancy meeting you here." "Do you know what happened?" "Fräulein Cerphal sold the house." "They say she's travelling the world." "She's spending her money with Gattinger." "You know, we were happy in that house." "I always thought I didn't really belong." "But now..." "What about the others?" "Do you ever see them?" "You've been away a long time." "Remember that story about Helga?" "How she came home after a year, and the doorbell still didn't work?" "You get around, you see the world." "You realise how much you can do in one day." "Then you come home, and time has stood still." "They haven't even repaired the doorbell." "Then you know you're home." "I've always hated that feeling of being home." "But it all revolved around you." "In the villa?" "That was just chance." "Half a year in South America." "You come home... and Munich is a village." "The capital of Bavaria." "We moved six times before I was 16." "We never stayed anywhere longer than two years." "Five new schools, five new sets of teachers to hate." "If I only knew what happened to the piano." "It wasn't bad at all." "It had a special sound." "Cool, but rounded." "You had to like it or it wouldn't respond." "How can you think of this stupid piano?" "The villa's gone and you don't give a damn." "Nothing's like it was anymore." "I've got to go." "She's getting hungry." "Marriage makes us all materialists." "Shall I drive you?" "I've got the car." "Aren't you filming?" "Are you happy, Hermann?" "With a wife and child and home?" "And an alarm clock beside the bed?" "Things have changed." "That's just what I said." "You don't like children, do you?" "You're under the weather, Reinhard." "Go home." "RENATE'S U-BOAT" "Hi." "Good evening." "Nice to see you again." "Have a look around." "Yesterday we were closed, today we're open." "Now for our latest cocktail:" "Olga's Tears." "Freshly squeezed." "What are you writing?" ""Every finite thing is determined by other finite things." ""None has God..." ""as it's proximate course. "" "And that's Olga's Tears for you." ""The question is:" ""What links the infinite number of substances..." ""to the infinity of God?"" "Did you know that Foxholes is gone?" "Yes." "Spinoza has an explanation for that, too." "Every house is defined by the neighbouring houses... every demolition by neighbouring demolitions." "Can you look after the guests?" "I'm on in a moment." "Well, globetrotter, let's have a look at you." "Your eyes have changed." "I realised today that I can look back on 33 years." "Can you imagine?" "It's incredible." "Same age as Jesus." "Time to do something for your immortality." "I nearly died in Mexico." "Ladies and gentlemen, in honour of Poseidon, god of the sea... we present the poem, The Night Song of the Fish." "How can you stand it, Alex?" "Everyone off in his own little corner?" ""There is no centre in this world of monads." ""We're closed off from the outside, windowless. "" "As Leibniz says." "You look unwell, and unhappy." ""Pain is localised sorrow. "" "As Spinoza says." " Stuff Spinoza!" "I want to know what's wrong with us." "The same thing that's wrong with everyone." "We are mirror images of the whole." "You drive me nuts!" "I'm not going to play this game, this solitude game." "I want to belong, to be needed." "Understand?" "Reinhard Dörr here." "The cutting room, please." "Dagmar?" "It's me." "No, it's a Mexican record." "I just wanted to say I'll be late." "Trixi, what are you doing here?" "Can I come in?" " Sure." "Are you skipping school?" "Have you seen Dagmar at the studio?" "Does she know you're here?" "Where did you get my address?" " I know everything." "Well, what do you want?" "I want to be in films." "That's why you're skipping school." "You're writing a film, aren't you?" " I plan to." "What's it to do with you?" "Lots!" "I want to play the lead." "You have to know me better, so you can write it for me." "I'm 5'5"." "I like dancing... and nice clothes, and I'm good at kissing." "I see myself as a diplomat's daughter or a Hollywood belle." "Do you know Brigitte Bardot?" "I travel the world, and men worship me." "In the film, I mean." "If you only knew." "Please, Herr Dörr, let me be in it." "Why so formal?" "You're at least 10 years older than me." "And a director." "Of the New German Cinema." "Shit, don't make me laugh." "Want some?" "Now, listen." "I've only just started writing." "I don't know how the story ends, or if I'll like it." "At the moment, I'm just sad... and that's why I'm writing." "I'm looking for images that make me sad." "I'm often sad." "37 days ago, I was in Tampico." "Can you imagine?" "On the coast of Mexico." "A famous Western's set there." "My God, and now I'm back here." "Is your film a Western?" "It's about a man travelling through the wilderness." "One day he gets homesick, and wants to be back with his friends." "But, when he gets home... the house is gone." "Get it?" "Burnt down by Apaches?" "Yes, if it was a Western." "But this is a modern story." "Now the wilderness is the city." "There are no more horses, only cars." "No more killers and outlaws... only respectable citizens, businesspeople, developers." "Too bad." "Why?" "Horses and Indians, the desert and the prairie, they're much more fun." "Well, I don't know what'll become of this story... or how it'll turn out." "Is that your sister's lipstick?" " Very funny." "Anyway, I've no idea where the money's coming from." "I'll put in for a grant, but..." "It's just an idea, that's all." "Take me with you." "Where?" " Everywhere." "We'll write together and go to movies." "We'll think up a good story and be sad together." "Please, I'm not a kid anymore, honestly." "Sometimes I feel ancient, and I'm only 33." "I always thought the older you got, the sadder you got." "With my sadness, I ought to be 1,000." "You're lonely, I can tell." "I'm off." "Bad conscience?" "You know what Dagmar says?" "What?" " When I'm dead... my finger will grow out of my grave like this." "And threaten you." "That's creepy." " My sister believes that stuff." "I won't tell her, I promise." "Good morning." " Good morning." "Can we run the sequence?" "Was that my little sister out there?" "I heard her voice." "Why didn't she come in?" " Your sister?" "Don't look so innocent." "I know she's after you." "Be careful, she's a little hussy, our Trixi." "Runs in the family." "Remember that?" "That was the morning we got lost." "We came down from Tampico in that old Land Rover." "An army jeep, full of bullet holes." "The night before, Rob met this guy, Don Gustavo... who insisted on fixing him up with a Mexican girl." "When I see these pictures, it all comes back to me." "In those subtropical places... at sunrise, it's still hot from the day before." "And so damp, you think you've got TB." "You sweat all night." "The dew's not cool, just sticky." "And Don Gustavo says, "Before you leave..." ""you must have a Mexican girl." ""Then you'll come back again. "" "And will you?" " Sure." "Look at this." "Know who that was, Dagmar?" "The man with the red flag?" " Now listen to me." "You can't cut a film this way." "For three weeks, all I've heard is memories of these pictures." "Let me tell you, you can forget your memories." "You mean, the film's no good?" " I didn't say that." "There are good shots, they may make a good film." "And the cotton theme is fine." "But there's nothing in here of your memories." "Nothing of all that personal stuff." "We must forget all that, Dagmar's right." "Forget it?" "Never!" "What are you talking about?" "That trip was the high point of my life." "Every day was a jewel." "But we didn't bring the jewels home." "I brought myself home." "What if it isn't in the film?" "It's here in my head, every image forever and ever!" "Run it all again." "So you've heard about it, too?" "Jean-Marie told me." "I couldn't believe it." "That's why I'm here." "It looks so empty." "I can't imagine the house ever stood here." "And it's all somehow shrunk, don't you agree?" "How are you?" "It's been nearly two years." "This is Lulu." "I heard that you're expecting a baby." "It's overdue." "All I can do is wait." "Are you happy about it?" "Perhaps." "They say the hormones make you happy." "A lovely child." "She has your eyes." " I don't know." "I'd like to think so." "After Berg's heroine." "Schnüsschen doesn't like the name." "But you do?" "Lulu was a wicked woman, you realise that?" "One day she'll make men suffer." "It's funny, meeting like this." "I wasn't expecting you at all." "What about your music?" "It's taking a break." "Can it?" "I'm a woman." "I'm going to marry Volker." "So I heard." "How are things, otherwise?" "I'm writing a requiem:" "Farewell to Foxholes." "So that's why you're here." "I'm going now." "So am I." "I'll see you." "I must talk to you." "You can't skip school every day and come here." "What is it now?" "I have a great secret." "I couldn't wait." "Can I tell you?" "Go ahead." "You need money, right?" "Yes, lots." "But don't you know anyone rich?" "No, I'll have to marry a rich widow." "Reinhard, I am so excited." "Have you got a cigarette?" "What's up?" "Are we going to rob a bank?" "You told me how much that woman made." "The one whose house was torn down." "Don't you get it?" "You know her and she is rich." "Filthy rich." "Go and tell her your idea." "She'll give you the money... and you can make the film." "And I'll play the lead." "What did you say?" "It'll work, you are such a great storyteller." "Tell it to her like you told me in the car." "She'll lap it up." "She has got millions." "And she is probably bored stiff." "You better hurry, other people may be after her, too." "Trixi, you're sweet." "Undo these." "Do you really think rich people are like that?" "Not all." "But maybe one." "One is enough." "What gave you the idea?" " Mary Queen of Scots." "I suddenly thought, "What a noble woman. "" "Maybe there's one around today who'd pay for your film." "You've got a funny mind." " Are you disappointed?" "I don't even know where Fräulein Cerphal is." "Find her, then." "CERPHAL PUBLISHERS" "I know another person who has a claim on the house." "Evelyne?" " Maybe." "But someone else as well." "What?" "If I tell you, you'll have to go to Venice." "Venice?" "I had scribbled down my Foxholes Requiem in a few days... feeling irritable and unable to concentrate." "Lulu had an ear infection, and kept me awake at night." "Schnüsschen wanted to give up her job... and was pressing me to earn money with my music, at last." "Reinhard needed someone to write the music for his cotton film... and my friends only reluctantly agreed to join a Requiem parade." "We marched down the street, dressed up and determined... but we hadn't rehearsed." "With every step, our music sounded worse." "I was ashamed." "But played through to the end." "What now?" "A funeral meal?" "A glass of wine at Renate's?" "Can you feel the spirits?" "They still haunt the place." "I've got gooseflesh." "I am sure the little fellow in there sensed something." "Did he give any sign?" "He doesn't like music, he goes all quiet when he hears it." "I think he is unmusical." "Thank God." "Let him find another torment." "It could mean just the opposite." "Anyway, I think he's a she." "Juan, are you really going back to South America?" "Yes." "I have no luck in your country." "You are the only one of us who still lives alone." "In a way, I envy you." "Volker says we are like ships on the high seas... that have to sail under someone's flag." "It's all a question of whose:" "Olga's... or Helga's... or Schnüsschen's." "Well, comrade?" "Will he be a Lichtblau or a Schimmelpfennig?" "In other words, when's the wedding?" "She's still against it and I must admit, Lichtblau is a nicer name." "There's not enough marrying." "In May, I sail from Genoa... in a beautiful white Italian ship." "On the journey over I found an eternal love on that ship." "It lasted 11 days and nights." "As long as the crossing." "That won't happen again." "You are leaving in May?" "I love you all." "I'd like to invite you home." "Schnüsschen would love to see you." "I liked your Requiem." "I recognised the Wolves motif." "Are you crazy?" "Where have you been, anyway?" "Stop that bloody thing at once!" "Get out, it's dangerous." "I'll flatten you all." "You and your sentimental crap." "I know how you feel, Juan." "For three months..." "I've been in a play and none of our dear friends has shown up." "Happy families." "I have an appointment." "Got to go." "Peace, friends." "Why don't we all go and see Olga's play?" "Why is everybody so touchy?" "I arranged this." "I composed this piece out of friendship." "Out of friendship." "And to mark this occasion." " What's past is past." "I know that." "Foxholes was only a house, the place where we used to meet." "But we have our whole lives ahead of us, damn it." "You act as if everything is lost." "Nothing is lost." "Just open your eyes and ears." "And why doesn't anybody say what they thought of my Requiem?" "I told you I liked it, at the rehearsal." "Music isn't my field but it was moving, here on this site." "Olga, wait, I am coming." "I've had enough." "I am sorry, but this is all complete shit." "I am going for a beer with my musicians." "Your wife lets you out for the day?" "I shall escort you to the theatre." " You don't have to, Alex." "I insist." " Really?" "Let me be your only admirer, just for today." "What's wrong?" "A terrible headache." "Do you get them often?" " Recently." "It'll pass." "I am going mad." "You are a genius, that's all." "Right, Trixi." "Time to get off." "It's about to leave." "You really can't come." " Why not?" "I don't see why." "Because your mother doesn't know." "Your sister doesn't know." "Because you are only 15." "And I don't know what will happen." "Stop trying it on all the time." "But I am your girlfriend." "I know." "I'll be back." "Mother?" "I am all wet." "My bed is wet." "It's running out of me." "Is it normal?" "Have the pains started?" " I don't think so." "Just sometimes." "I woke up with a pain." "Shall I call Dr. Kirchmeier?" "You must know, Mother." "Is it starting?" "Have my waters burst?" " It was different with me." "3:00." "You overdid it today." "I told you not to go." "I can't relate to this child." "I am ashamed that I have no maternal feelings." "That will change when you see it." "When it loves you and needs you, you'll love it, too." "It's a stranger." "It needs everything from me and it's a complete stranger." "You have to get to know each other." "Was I a stranger?" "Later, when you grew up." "Then you were often a great stranger." "You know, you forget so quickly... what it was like, with children." "And Volker..." "I don't really love him." "I try to because he is gentle and intelligent and patient." "I try to be the same." "He is a good musician." "Almost a genius, sometimes." "Almost." " I like him." "I worry about him." "He doesn't look well." "Is he ill?" "He has always looked like that." "It's all fate." "You can't choose who to spend your life with... your children or your husband." "Success, too, just comes or doesn't come." "Why do we work, then?" "Why do we fall in love?" "I don't know, Clarissa." "It all sounds so hopeless." "I am so happy about your baby." "I'll help you to bring it up." "I can't just take things as they come like that." "But you must." "First you must have your baby." "I'll call a taxi to take us to the hospital." "That's enough of this night fears." "That's all they are, night fears." "ESTHER GOLDBAUM PHOTOGRAPHER" "You can speak German." "You won't find Fräulein Cerphal here." "You're in my light." "I was told I could find Fräulein Cerphal here." "Perhaps you can help me?" "Are you her niece?" " Who told you that?" "It was just a hunch." "You are Esther Goldbaum?" "I am." "Out of the way." "They are almost medical, your pictures." "Case histories of sick cats?" "In Venice." "All in Venice." "Shocked?" "What is your name?" "Reinhard Dörr." "I am a filmmaker from Munich." "Or rather I live there." "I am writing a screenplay about a Munich story." "A publisher's family, an heiress." " Hold this." "Various heirs." "It's really about a house." "I am still researching." "Who said my aunt would be here?" "Is she coming?" "Don't you know?" " No idea." "I'll be here for a while." "Can I come again?" "Will it be a feature film?" " I hope so." "Are these for an exhibition?" "A cat's-eye view of Venice?" "Something like that." "Come back in a few days." "Come on." "Coming up?" "Been seeing Venice?" "I have been thinking and writing." "I have something for you." "From my aunt." "Read it." "From Peru." "Posted six weeks ago." "It took all that time to get here." "Peru?" "I'll have a long wait, then." "Go ahead, read it." "After that she was going to Biarritz or somewhere." "Excuse me." "How is it going?" "Not too well." "I can't keep my room, they don't like me typing." "And it's awfully expensive here." "Venetians have their own inflation, just add a zero." "Come here." "You can work here." "You mean..." "It's free, there's no one to disturb." "The house is too big for me." "Lovely light." "Afternoon sun." "I can't work in the morning, anyway." "Take it." "Fix it up to suit yourself." "It'll save you coming to ask all the time." "She is coming with Herr Gattinger?" " My father." "Gattinger?" "That old" " Nazi." "Say it." "I am sorry." "I didn't mean to." "I didn't know." "Guessed..." "You can use it for your film." "Trixi, what's wrong?" "What is it?" " Nothing." "You can tell me." "Is it a boy?" " Leave me alone." "Okay." "I can look into the depths of your wicked little soul." "And what do I see?" "The end of a Hollywood career." "Stupid cow!" "At least you have stopped bawling." "One day it'll happen to you and you'll see how mean you were." "One day what will happen?" "Right, I've got it." "Seven seconds of musique concrète." "How does it sound?" "Look what I've got." "Venice." "It's from Reinhard." " In Venice." ""Dear Olga, I am on the track of a character here. "" "I can't read this bit." ""I am learning about her as I write." ""What are you doing next spring?" ""I have got a wonderful part for you." ""Love from the city of dreamers and robbers, Reinhard. "" "Go on." "Go on typing." "Stand up." "Over against the wall." "Take your vest off." "Turn around." "What do you want to see?" " Everything." "I never photograph people." "This is new for me, too." "Go to the window." "Lift your arms up." "Higher." "Now kneel down." "Didn't you have dysentery?" "It hurt like hell." "Where?" "In your stomach?" " Lower down." "Clutch yourself, remember the pain... like your guts were being torn out." "Sorry." "Take your trousers off." "You'll pay for this." "You'll have to tell me everything." " Okay." "I want your whole life." "On your stomach." "What have I let myself in for?" "How many more?" "Not many." "Turn over." "Catch!" "Is he asleep?" "I want to go away." "To Australia, preferably." "And little Arnold?" "He looks at me so reproachfully." "You are imagining it." "He's always hungry." "I'm not enough for him." "He's never satisfied." "But he's gained weight." "Look at his chubby cheeks." "We have to get to know each other, Arnold." "You were nine when your mother died in Dachau." "You had only one photo." "Only one photo of the beautiful Jewess." "At night, in bed that photo hung next to you on the wall." "In that room, in that house, in Ticino, in Switzerland... you were homesick and couldn't sleep." "Every morning you asked your aunt... when your mother was coming to fetch you." "Never an answer could you believe." "You were too young to understand what war meant or... that they'd betrayed her and sent her to Dachau." "Your Swiss aunt couldn't understand that, either." "One day the war was over." "But for you nothing had changed." "War was only a word." "Your mother seemed further and further away, until finally... she was just a photo." "A piece of paper, which you smelled... and licked, searching for some trace of your mother." "But she remained a piece of paper." "Perhaps, that paper made you a photographer." "You are rewriting me." "No, I'm telling you your own story." "It's too romantic, too German." " But very good." "I can feel it, ever since you've been here." "You're so afraid when a woman comes near you." ""Alexander doesn't reply." ""He looks out the window at the half-moon over Venice. "" "Have you got a woman in Munich?" "You needn't be afraid of me." "It's just a strange thought, that I'm giving you my life." "To make into a film." "I'm giving you my life." "You know what maddens me about writing?" "That no feeling is ever simple." "You ought to hate all Germans." "But you think and speak German." "You ought to hate Herr Gattinger, who made you... then betrayed your mother, to protect his Nazi career." "But you call him father." "He helped me to go to the Academy in Florence." "He helped himself to your inheritance." "He and the Cerphals." "But you love him." "Do you love him?" "Do you?" " Do I love him?" "Of course I do!" "Reinhard, what are you doing?" "I'm not one of those Nazi Jewesses!" "Don't write that." "It's kitsch and it's not true." "I'm only me!" "Come back and listen properly!" "What do you hear?" "What do you hear?" "It'll take weeks and weeks." "You can have the attic, my ex-husbands room." "I'll leave you alone, and you me, okay?" ""Alexander turns on his back..." ""gazes up at the moon..." ""and says... "" ""'The half-moon shines in the sky..." ""the air is foggy and cold..." ""I hail thee, demigod of the heavens..." ""Like thee I'm half, not whole. '" ""Do you know that poem?"" ""Esther shakes her head. "" ""I was born half good and half evil." ""But paltry in either course." ""My goodness lacking grandeur." ""My evil lacking force. "" ""Esther gets up..." ""steals over to Reinhard..." ""sits on his lap..." ""and whispers comfortingly in his ear:" ""'The moon is waxing!"'" "Is it really?" "When it's round on the right, it's waxing." "Luckily for us..." "It's all right, it's all here." "For you." "She's lost all her money." "She's destitute, did you know that, child?" "I tried to warn her." "It was a completely harebrained scheme." "Some Frenchmen wanted to build a cultural institute in the mountains." "Doomed to failure from the start." "But she gave them two million." " Marks." "Gone for good." "How are you feeling?" " Don't play the innocent!" "You got me into this mess." "I should never have listened to you." "My father warned me about you." "Do you know what he said?" ""That Gattinger is a bad cheque." ""Like the whole Third Reich. "" "You haven't learned a thing, Gerold." "It's not true." "I tried to warn her." "But this artist appeared and there was no stopping her." "My father's here, and my aunt." "Come in." "Don't we know each other from Munich?" "Well!" "What was your name again?" " Dörr." "Elisabeth, look who's here." "Reinhard's living here." "We're working together." "Well, I've done my bit, once and for all." "You artists are bloodsuckers, absolute vampires." "For years they were all over my house, bleeding me dry." "Are you after me, too?" "I'm writing a screenplay, about Esther... and your house." "They only ever wanted my money." "Money, it's horrible." "Look at me." "In one year, I've aged 20." "It's horrible." "I wanted him to be goulash." "But he won't." "Maybe the other one will." "Will you?" "That was my father." "My father was a fighter pilot." "He helped bomb Guernica." "He got a medal for it in '37." "He wore it next to his heart." "It looked just like a fried egg." "Another murderer?" "But nice." "He made my mother happy... at least for a few years." "First I found you ugly." "Well?" "The first photo's always the best." "How about the grain?" "It's good." " Go closer." "You know, I love your neck?" "It's so vulnerable." "Have you ever thought of being beheaded?" "The blade cutting into your neck... and coming out through your throat?" "I often imagine going to the scaffold." "How my heart pounds, and I start to panic." "But I keep walking." "It's just chance that we live in an age when such things don't happen." "Unlike your mother, in the Third Reich." "My mother was gassed, not beheaded." "If only I knew why I told you my story." "As if I'd been waiting to get rid of it." "Your story is my story now." "296 pages!" "Don't you want to read it?" "Don't you want to read it?" "Later." "Now you'll leave me." "Let me out, please!" "You were my prisoner all the time." "I must go back to Munich, to see what's real and what I've invented." "Maybe it doesn't even exist." "No one ever listened to me for so long." "If I stay here, I'll never make this film." "Have you got me now?" "Is your curiosity satisfied?" "Have you got me?" "I'll be back!" "11 days ago I was in Venice." "Can you imagine?" "The whole city under water." "And now, I'm back here." " Right, they're ready." "Don't open them yet, the glue's not dry." "I'd like one for my leading lady." "Of course, that's different." "May I introduce myself?" "Hösl." "I'm a real film fan." "As a kid, I went around with a travelling cinema." "I knew all the actors in those days." "Just a moment." "May I have your autograph?" "Mine?" "Better get used to it, Olga!" "Your name?" " Hösl." "With an "e"?" " No, just "s-I."" "Trixi!" "It's been ages!" "I've finished the screenplay." "Look!" "Traitor!" "Don't be like that." "Five weeks I waited for you!" "And you never sent one word!" "Waited?" "It was all my idea." "Everything's changed, Trixi." "I'll tell you about it soon, okay?" "Phoney!" "I'll never speak to you again." "Has she got a crush on you?" "I'm so happy it's starting at last." "I've waited so long." "Get in, I won't be long." " I won't disappoint you!" "What'll you have?" "Coffee?" "Now listen, Trixi." "In this film... there's a really great little part for you." "Honestly." "So?" "Esther, you know, the lead... she's much older than you." "She was in the war, you see?" "And she has dark hair." " Like Olga?" "Yes, well, she'll have to dye it." "You know what, Reinhard?" "You're a stupid wimp!" "You'll never make a decent film." "Blonde, dark, Munich, Mexico." "And best wishes from Venice." ""I've got a wonderful part for you. "" "You know what you are?" "A straw in the wind." "Fluttering around, dipping... and bobbing." "Like this!" "Wimp!" "Drop dead, Reinhard!" "Shall I open the window?" "No, there's an awful draught back here." "It's misting up." "Wait, I'll fix it." "Just press the knob." "Let me do it, I can manage." "Press it, and then what?" "I think he's hungry." " He's just tired, obviously." "You sound like my mother." "Well, our Simone's sleeping." "Hermann, close the window." "Where are we?" " Can't be far now." "The sooner we get there, the better." " What if Rob's not home?" "He's always home at weekends." " True." "You can't go any faster?" "What a load!" " You said it!" "All right, Simone, all right." "Get the pram, Hermann." " What do you think I am doing?" "All right, my love." "Where's Mummy's little baby?" "Why did they cut his head off?" "St. Alban spread the word of God... and that made him many enemies." "Finally he was beheaded for it." "He looks as if he could put it back on again." "You're right." "For that is what Christ tells us:" ""He that believeth in me hath everlasting life. "" "Where is Clarissa?" " In the church, I think." "Is there anyone in that boat?" "I can't see anyone." "It must have come adrift." "What's that?" " Looks like a patrol boat." "There must have been an accident." "Has anyone seen Reinhard?" " No, why?" "I've called the Lake Patrol." " Why?" "What's happened?" "Have you found anything?" " Not yet." "Reinhard went out very early in our boat." "He wanted to think about the script." " Has something happened to him?" "Reinhard was in that boat." "Found anything?" " Nothing." "He was bobbing about, but..." "Herr Stürmer, can I have a word?" "You knew him?" "He had a screenplay with him." "A4, bound." "Title Esther." "Age?" "33." "From here?" "No, Munich, Wilhelmstrasse, 4." "Anything else you can tell us?" "I can still see your face before me..." "I still hold my heart in check." "Sometimes it's too much, and I want to drop the film and run back to you." "But how could I face you, without having told Esther's story?" "It's my way of loving you." "Isn't it?" "Reinhard." "COAST GUARD"