Die Frau des Polizisten (2013)

Christine lives in a small town with her husband Uwe and their four-year-old daughter, Clara. Uwe is a police officer; he goes on patrol with various colleagues, but the equipment of a riot-control unit is also stored in the apartment, and little Clara plays with it. Christine spends a lot of time alone with Clara. She plays with her very tenderly and sensitively, tells her stories, and makes up childlike dialogues. We also see a few scenes of family life with all three of them. At first, Christine’s relationship with her husband is playful and affectionate: arm wrestling, darts, and even an unusual variation on darts using soap bubbles. This playful rivalry eventually turns into domineering behavior and violence. At first, only bruises are visible on Christine’s body. About two-thirds of the way through the 59 chapters, the violent confrontation erupts in the open, in front of little Clara. The father tries to explain the bruises to both the child and the viewer by invoking a mysterious illness that the mother is supposedly suffering from. Near the end of the film, the spouses have a violent confrontation, both verbal and physical; Christine seems to lose her life after being struck and falling. Clara lies down beside her, as if her mother were asleep. In the next chapter (the [number unspecified]), mother and child take a bath; they first submerge themselves to play, but Clara appears to be drowning without her mother intervening to help her. It could also be a dream sequence experienced by Clara while asleep. Chapter 58 also suggests this: a still image filmed from the point of view of someone lying on the floor (Clara?). In the final chapter, [number unspecified], Clara is lying on her back, asleep or dead (?), but she opens her eyes and startles in the film’s final shot.