Echo (2022)

After a traumatic deployment as a police trainer in Afghanistan, where she survived a bombing, police officer Saskia Harder is supposed to take on her first case as part of her return to work. The case involves establishing the identity of a girl’s body found in the moor near Friedland, a fictional town. At the same time, an unexploded World War II bomb is discovered in the moat of the local moated castle in the otherwise peaceful village. The bomb may still be live, and most of Friedland’s residents now have other concerns than Harder’s investigation. The brutal Nazi era in Friedland echoes into the present, bringing the police officer into confrontation with her own guilt over the past. She was unable to save other lives. The officer’s war trauma is depicted several times as violet smoke visible only to her—the color of the smoke grenades that exploded at the time. She suffers brief lapses in awareness and even faints, with no apparent cause that others can identify. The investigation leads to the suspicion that the body in the moor may be the daughter of a couple living nearby, who has been missing for several years. The father reacts somewhat rationally, while the mother completely rejects the thought that the dead girl could be her little daughter. She has even kept a pair of the child’s shoes for years, so that the girl would not have to go barefoot when she returned. By now, the shoes would have long since become too small. The bomb has a time-delay fuse and cannot be defused using the usual methods. It is to be detonated, requiring extensive evacuations and obstructing the police officer’s work. Eventually, an archaeological team takes charge of the body in the moor. They say it is thousands of years old, meaning there is no recent murder case here. The police officer reacts to this shift in authority with great anger and, at times, irrationally. “Murder has no statute of limitations.” The film does not resolve, for the time being, whether the body really is an ancient bog body or the victim of a murder committed several years ago. The story ends with the countdown to the start of the bomb disposal operation. In the final shot, the moor is seen once more, and bare legs extend into the frame from the top edge.