Der Verlust (2015)

Nora, a librarian from Hamburg, rides a bicycle through the city at night with Uli, her lover of one year. Uli entertains her with his original views on Hamburgers, which he also shares with his guests as a tour guide on a boat. He also makes a lyrical declaration of love. Suddenly, Uli begins riding mechanically and is no longer responsive. They approach a junction. Uli does not brake as a speeding car approaches on the road they are entering. The car swerves to avoid them and hits a pedestrian, who is fatally injured. The next day, Uli has a stroke and is admitted to the hospital. He has lost his speech, and his ability to move is severely impaired. With these losses of autonomy, he has to put up with other people deciding how to treat him. For when Nora is gathering Uli’s things at his apartment to take to the hospital, a second cell phone rings there. A woman is trying to reach Uli to look at a house with him. Nora is “thunderstruck,” and instead of spending time at Uli’s hospital bedside, she investigates this other relationship. In doing so, she gets to know not only Karin Petersen, with whom Uli has lived for ten years—though for the past year, only on weekends—but also his brother Frank and Frank’s wife, Hilde, with whom Uli is deeply estranged. Karin Petersen lives in a town on the North Sea, where Uli also grew up. That was where the fishing-net factory owned by Uli and Frank’s father stood. When their father became demented, the brothers had to take over. At the time, Uli had already been living with Hilde for four years. Uli shirked the responsibility of managing a business and fled to Hamburg. His relationship with Hilde fell apart when she realized that Uli could not chart a clear course and was unable to make decisions about the future. His brother Frank could, so she turned to him and married him. Uli felt betrayed and never forgave them. Having learned a few more things about her lover Uli, Nora comes face to face with Karin Petersen. They both love Uli. He had taken each of them in after major losses (like the image of a little hedgehog that must be rescued before winter arrives so it won’t starve) and saved their lives: Karin Petersen’s child, born seriously ill, had died in its first year of life ten years earlier. Its father had then left her. A year ago, Nora had lost her beloved husband to cancer. When Uli eventually turns up at Karin’s, having escaped from the hospital and still in need of considerable care, Nora has to make a decision. She senses that Uli does not want to leave Nora, and lets him go. At the end of the film, she sees Uli, apparently fully recovered, standing by the entrance to the building from the window of her Hamburg apartment. She goes down to him, and he says he only wanted to know how she was.