Die Stunde des Wolfes (2011)

Rebecca Thalberg escapes from a psychiatric hospital. Together with her deceased husband Henry, who still exists in her imagination, she sets off by train for his old home: Dippoldisberg, a rundown village in the Ore Mountains. There, she wants to solve the mystery of her father-in-law’s death. The only person who offers to help her is forester Tom Faller. First, he arranges a room for Rebecca at the boarding house run by the inhospitable Bertha Orth, who does not allow male visitors in the rooms. So Henry, her (imaginary) husband, has to sneak into the boarding house at night without being seen. Jealously, he watches the forester flirt with his wife, but he can do nothing about it. Rebecca wants to look around the old glassworks belonging to Henry’s father. It has stood empty for many years since the accident, and Tom Faller offers to accompany her to the grim place. Tom tells her about a curse that has supposedly hung over the whole village ever since, because many of the local men were “left in the mountain” after a mining accident. Old Thalberg burned to death in the glassworks days later, when lightning struck during a storm. His wife Eleanor had rarely left the house since then. But Rebecca has her doubts about all the frightening stories of devils and wolves supposedly roaming around there. That evening, when Henry appears again, she asks him what really happened back then, but he refuses to reveal anything about the past. So she goes to see Henry’s mother. The two have met before. The reception is very distant, and when Rebecca asks Eleanor about the past, she too speaks of dark tales and wolves. Eleanor would rather have nothing to do with Rebecca, because she is afraid the whole truth might come to light. In fact, ever since Rebecca’s stay in the hospital, she has had a private detective watching her, to stop Rebecca from visiting. But now that Rebecca is there, Eleanor has to work out how to deal with it. Tom, who spends a lot of time with Rebecca every day, begins to fall in love with her. Now that he has learned her husband is dead, he hopes he can win her heart. But Rebecca finds Henry’s watch, engraved “For my son Henry Thalberg,” in Tom’s possession, and is confused. When the villagers turn against her the next day, she suspects that the whole village is involved in the Thalbergs’ dark family secret. Tom, who continues to pursue Rebecca’s affection, tells her what happened at the glassworks back then. And so, at last, she learns the whole truth: many years ago, Tom Faller’s father had an affair with Eleanor Thalberg. Henry was born of that relationship. Eleanor’s husband was so furious about it that he tortured Henry with electricity in a room at the glassworks. One day, Henry Thalberg took revenge by pushing the man he believed to be his father into a furnace at the glassworks, trying to kill him. But his father managed to get out of the furnace. Henry’s mother, who had witnessed this, then bludgeoned her husband to death so he could not take revenge on her son. To cover up the crime and destroy all traces of it, Tom’s father set the glassworks on fire. Rebecca is shocked and angry that Eleanor let her son believe all those years that he had killed his father. Unable to live with that burden any longer, Henry had taken his own life a year earlier. Despite the tragedy of what happened, Rebecca is now relieved. She says goodbye to Tom, leaving him with the hope that she might return. Content, she rides away by train, when Henry appears to her again and says, “I like him. He’s right for you.”