Ein offener Käfig (2014)

Georg has done a number of terrible things: he raped three young women and is therefore considered a sex offender. After serving his prison sentence, he seeks a place to stay with his brother Robert, a respected and popular member of a small town in Baden who runs the car dealership he inherited from their father. At first, Robert is rather opposed to the idea of taking in his brother, who has a criminal record. He wonders what might have happened to his brother, whether he will ever be able to trust him again, and whether Georg can ever be reintegrated into society. In truth, however, Robert has no real alternative: seeing his brother sleeping on the street is not an option either. Especially since it became clear during Georg’s police interrogations that, as a child, he was regularly beaten by their father. Georg himself does not accept those childhood experiences as an excuse for his own behavior, but for his brother Robert, they are reason enough not to place all the blame for Georg’s misconduct solely on Georg. So Georg moves into Robert’s garden shed, but Robert soon faces the community’s hostility. First there is his fiancée, whose daughter is the same age as the young women Georg raped. Then the neighbors gather outside Robert’s house in protest, chanting that they will not tolerate a rapist living in their neighborhood. Robert begins to doubt whether his decision to take his brother in was a mistake after all. Nearly the entire community is now turning against him, and in any case, he no longer feels safe in his own home. But Robert’s kindness toward his brother ultimately prevails. Torn by conflicting feelings and indecision, he tries to think clearly. On the one hand, his brother is a convicted criminal who raped young women; there is no question about that. Yet at times Georg lets it show that he himself is afraid of the sexual monster he seems to carry within him. Should he be denied any future because of this, effectively excluded from society? Robert continues to stand by his brother, because Georg has no one else left who trusts him.