Am Ende wird alles sichtbar (2023)

In 1964, photographer Josef returns to his hometown after decades away to claim an inheritance and search for his childhood sweetheart, Ragusa. He starts working as a gravedigger and has to bury several boys who were victims of a murder spree. The locals greet Josef, the returning outsider, with suspicion. The police chief, the mayor, the journalist, the priest, and other men at the regular tavern gathering suspect that Josef is investigating the murders undercover. They also fear that he might reopen old wounds. Ragusa is now the baker’s widow and runs the bakery alone. The mayor gives the journalist an interview in which he explains that he never wanted to be mayor, but a gardener, and took the position only at his father’s request. The mayor leads a boy who is playing ball into the woods; soon afterward, the child is found murdered. Dr. Abweger, who is running against the incumbent mayor, suspects a connection between the series of murders and the upcoming mayoral election. As a young soldier, Josef had been ordered by the mayor to photograph, as a war correspondent, the massacre of immigrants by local soldiers. One of the victims was little Michael, whom Josef keeps speaking to, although Josef is the only one who can see him. Michael leads him to the place where his bones are buried. In a box, Josef receives photographs of the shooting, which the police chief confiscates and later has burned. Ragusa and Olga survived the massacre; a bullet had only grazed Ragusa. She hid in the bakery, where she was raped. The baker did hide her from the soldiers, but in return she had to marry him. In the case of the child murders, the police chief suspects both Josef and Dr. Abweger. The police chief is also jealous of Josef because of his relationship with Ragusa. Together with Ragusa, his childhood sweetheart, Josef decides to leave town to escape the atmosphere inflamed by the murder spree and the election campaign. While the police chief is raping Ragusa, Olga beats him to death. The mayor announces that the serial killer has been found: Dr. Abweger. Abweger is strangled, and the mayor claims that Abweger hanged himself. Josef is wounded by a knife thrust to the chest, but because of situs inversus, his heart is narrowly missed. In the hospital, he learns that Ragusa is pregnant. Ragusa is to publish Dr. Abweger’s written account of the massacre. Soon afterward, Josef dies. Flashbacks portray Josef’s childhood beginning in 1934.