Baching (2008)

After three years away, Benedikt Kirchner returns to his home village of Baching. His brother Robert, the village innkeeper, is in the middle of preparations for the village festival. Bernhard Stemmer commissioned him to organize it. At first, Benedikt hesitates to enter the village. He goes to his brother’s inn, where Robert is now married to Benedikt’s ex-girlfriend, Annette. Robert’s pleasure at seeing his brother is restrained, even though he has just had to dismiss a cook and could use Benedikt’s help. On top of that, their mother falls, injures her leg, and is no longer able to work at the festival. The two teachers, Bernhard and Gabi, argue in the staff room. Later, they meet at their daughter’s grave. On the way back to the village, Gabi sees Benedikt sitting in the passenger seat of his car while Robert is driving. Gabi tells Bernhard that Benedikt ran over their child and killed her. She wonders why he has come back. Benedikt visits his old friend Laura, who was in the car during the accident. She, too, is struggling with the shadows of the past. Bernhard gives a speech as the organizer of Baching’s 450th-anniversary celebration. When Herr Siemerl orders a schnapps and a beer, Bernhard takes away his car keys. Herr Siemerl is still struggling with the past, too. Meanwhile, Benedikt helps his brother in the kitchen. When the speech is over, Bernhard comes into the kitchen because he needs help with Herr Siemerl, who is completely drunk and refuses to leave. There he runs into Benedikt. Benedikt asks Robert for a few weeks’ work until he finds another job. Robert refuses, even though he could use the help. Laura, too, cannot escape the past. She picks up men at random to sleep with them. However, she discovers that one of her lovers is the husband of one of her patients, who is expecting a child. At Lena Stemmer’s grave, Benedikt meets Gabi, who forbids him from showing up there again. At the fair, Bernhard sees his wife in an intimate embrace with their colleague Roland Feller. Unable to cope with the separation, he attacks Feller. The situation for Benedikt at home is also becoming increasingly tense. He cannot forget the accident. The memories resurface, along with his old feelings for Annette, who is now married to his brother Robert. One night, she visits him in his room. The next day, Benedikt enters the bathroom just as Annette steps out of the shower. Benedikt visits Bernhard, who had invited him over to say that he had forgiven him. When his still-wife, Gabi, rings the doorbell, Bernhard hides him in the bedroom of his late daughter. Gabi confesses to Bernhard that she has been in a relationship with Roland for four months, which he cannot believe. Gabi also wants to pick up her rollerblades. When she asks where they are, Bernhard sends her to the bedroom. There, she finds Benedikt. She runs screaming from the room and beats Bernhard, who is still standing in the kitchen. The next day, Bernhard wants to apologize, but Gabi flees from him. The monk Johannes tries to mediate. The following day, Benedikt flies kites with Laura. As they talk, they both work through the accident. Laura realizes that Benedikt drove the car back then only to take her home. At the grave, Bernhard tells Johannes about the day of the accident, when his child ran out in front of the car. He blames himself, thinking that he did not look after his daughter carefully enough. Johannes tries to comfort him. Benedikt still cannot come to terms with the fact that his ex-girlfriend Annette is married to his brother Robert and that they have a child together. At the hospital, Laura runs into her one-night stand again, and he harasses her. She throws him out of the nurses’ room. Bernhard reprimands a driver for speeding in the 30-kilometer-per-hour zone. When Annette explains the coffee machine to Benedikt, he asks her about her sex life with his brother. That night, she turns her husband away. The next day, she asks Benedikt to move out. At first, Benedikt cannot believe it, but then he moves in with his longtime friend Laura. During preparations for the village festival, things come to a head between Benedikt and Bernhard when Bernhard nearly hits Benedikt with a hammer. Benedikt runs off and Bernhard chases him, demanding that Benedikt address him informally, since he has forgiven him. Benedikt refuses, so Bernhard punches him in the face several times. At Robert’s inn, everything is in chaos because he is overwhelmed alone in the kitchen. Benedikt cooks for Laura. They grow closer and eventually sleep together. The next day, they talk over the previous night. Laura tells him that he is the first person she has slept with in three years, even though they know each other. Benedikt wants to know whether they are a couple now, but Laura says no. In the staff room, things between Gabi and Bernhard become increasingly tense. She asks him not to hurt her like that again if they are to keep working together. That evening, they meet to go to the cinema together. After the movie, Bernhard begins to hope again for their relationship. Then Gabi tells him she is pregnant again. Bernhard jumps into his car and drives off. After an argument with Robert, Annette seeks refuge with Benedikt. They grow closer, but just before that, she refuses to sleep with him. As she leaves the apartment, she runs into Laura, who has by now fallen in love with Benedikt and leaves disappointed. At the next nightclub, Laura looks for another man. When she comes out of the bathroom the next day, she finds that the stranger has left two 100-euro notes on her bed. At home, she sees Benedikt packing his things. She shouts after him that none of the three of them can get over it. Benedikt does not let himself be stopped and gets into his car. At the village sign, he turns around and goes to find his brother at the village festival. Robert reproaches him: he had advised Benedikt to take a taxi back then, and Robert was the one who had to endure the consequences, because Benedikt disappeared while Robert stayed in the village. After their argument, the two make up. Benedikt returns to Laura. Everything seems to be back to normal, as becomes clear when the bowlers, as usual, order their four glasses of water.