Der Schneegänger (2020)

The nearly skeletal body of a child is found in the Grunewald forest. It is soon established that the boy is Darijo, who disappeared two years earlier at the age of eleven. The autopsy shows that he was murdered and had been subjected to severe abuse while alive. Chief Detective Inspector Lutz Gehring investigates the case with Police Sergeant Sanela Beara, who took the missing-person report at the time. Darijo’s mother is now married to the wealthy businessman Reinartz, for whom she had worked as a housekeeper two years earlier. Reinartz has two sons of his own, the younger of whom resembles Darijo in age and build. This leads investigators to assume that there had been a case of mistaken identity and that the intended target was actually Reinartz’s son. Darijo’s father, a forest ranger, is also suspected of having taken his son to live with him. Since his son’s disappearance, he has withdrawn deep into the woods, and because he has repeatedly shown himself to be violent, he is taken into custody temporarily. However, he denies having harmed his son. Sanela Beara is herself from Croatia, and the boy’s fate weighs heavily on her, especially the fact that no one claims to have noticed the abuse. Günter Reinartz says Darijo was a very wild child and often got hurt while roughhousing with his sons. When Gehring and Beara question Reinartz’s son Tristan, Beara notices that he, too, bears signs of abuse. She is certain that the key to the case lies in the Reinartz villa. She also blames herself for not investigating more thoroughly when the call reporting Darijo’s disappearance came in. To make amends for that failure, she sees no other option but to go undercover in the Reinartz household. She gets hired as a new housekeeper, giving her access to every room in the large villa and allowing her to listen in on the residents’ conversations. Siegfried Reinartz, the older son, comes across as quite narcissistic. When Tristan recognizes Beara, she is in danger. Siegfried knocks her out and locks her in a cellar. This brings back traumatic childhood memories of the war in the former Yugoslavia. Gehring manages to free Beara, but Siegfried has disappeared. Darijo’s father had turned up at the Reinartz home during the night, demanding justice: a son for a son. He kidnapped Siegfried, took him into the forest and is holding him captive there. Gehring and Beara, however, manage to find the frightened young man. Siegfried eventually admits that he was responsible for Darijo’s death, but says it was an accident. Beara then sets out to find Darijo’s father. He has barricaded himself in an elevated hunting blind in the forest with a gun. As the special operations unit moves in, she tries unsuccessfully to persuade Darko Tudor to surrender, and Tudor is ultimately shot dead by snipers.