Ewig Dein (2024)

Judith Löbmeyr owns a lamp shop in Vienna that she inherited. Among other things, her grandfather designed chandeliers for the Metropolitan Opera. Judith is assisted by her apprentice, Bianca Weber. One day at the supermarket, she meets 42-year-old architect Hannes Bergtaler, and the two begin a romantic relationship. At first, everything seems perfect: he is very attentive and generous, and Judith’s friends are also impressed by him. Hannes was previously involved with a pharmacist who suffered from depression and is no longer alive. He studied in Munich and specialized as an architect in pharmacies. Judith and Gerd, who is her friend, were a couple for three weeks 25 years ago, and Hannes is jealous. At first Judith enjoys his love, but soon she feels hemmed in by his intense attentiveness. On an impulsive trip to Venice, she realizes that something is not right with him. When Hannes’s attentions become too much for her, she ends the relationship. However, Hannes refuses to accept this and starts stalking her, repeatedly lying in wait for her. At Judith’s birthday party, her friends tell her that, according to Hannes, they are just going through a rough patch and will work things out. Valentin claims that it is typical of Judith to run away when she is loved. Judith, however, is surprised that all her friends have been talking to Hannes behind her back. She also cannot find any trace of a Hannes Bergtaler online—not a listing for his office or information about projects, nor any social media profiles. Later, Hannes turns up at Judith’s birthday party, having been invited by Roland. Hannes thinks she needs help, while Judith threatens to kill him if he ever touches her again. When Judith tries to confront Hannes and runs after him, she is hit by a car and ends up in hospital. While she is there, Hannes continues to send her large bouquets of yellow roses, which frighten her. Earlier, during the initially happy times they spent together, Hannes had showered her with red roses, among other things, and even then it had increasingly become too much for her. The feeling that Hannes was practically crushing her was ultimately what led Judith to end their relationship in Venice, but he refused to accept it. From then on, he inundated her with yellow roses instead of red ones. Bianca alone witnessed Hannes lying in wait for Judith outside her shop after the breakup and pressuring her to take him back. Even in hospital, Judith’s doctor does not believe that Hannes is stalking her and wants to hurt her, because Hannes manages to convince her that he only wants to help Judith, who is supposedly mentally ill, and that he loves her more than anything. To Judith’s relief, her best friend Gerd also visits her in hospital. He is the only person in her inner circle who finally believes that Hannes is stalking her and means to harm her. Gerd promises to protect Judith from Hannes from then on. But when Gerd leaves the hospital and drives away, Hannes follows him; he had already been waiting for him in his own car. The scene does not continue, but viewers can already suspect that Hannes has probably done something to Gerd, especially since Gerd does not appear again in the events that follow. After her discharge, Judith learns from her mother, Edith, that she has fired Bianca in the meantime because 2,000 euros were missing from the cash register at Judith’s shop. Hannes had helped Edith at the shop while Judith was in hospital. According to Ali, who invites Hannes to meet Judith again, she should finally accept her diagnosed psychosis so that she can recover. Judith sometimes asks about Gerd but gets no answer. Bianca’s boyfriend works for a florist whose customers include Hannes. His orders are placed under the name Wolfgang Peratoni; one is a funeral wreath for Isabelle Peratoni with the inscription “Yours Forever.” In her mail, Judith finds Gerd’s death notice. He died while Judith was in hospital, after having been in a coma. Judith completely loses control, apparently suspecting that Hannes may have had a hand in it. But Hannes tranquilizes her, and from then on takes care of her more and more, eventually doing so alone, as she becomes increasingly dependent and apathetic. He even feeds her mashed bananas. Judith remembers all the bananas Hannes bought when they first met at the supermarket, and suspects that he had fed them to the pharmacist before her death, too. Judith also notices that she is no longer receiving any calls: Hannes has canceled her phone contract and is taking care of her exclusively, leaving her with no contact of her own with the outside world. Hannes also tells Judith that he poisoned his mother when he was 16, apparently with medication hidden in mashed bananas as well. According to Hannes, self-efficacy is the key to happiness. Judith’s mother is in hospital with insulin shock and is therefore also unable to contact Judith. Viewers may suspect that Hannes could have had something to do with Judith’s mother’s insulin shock too, so that he can have Judith entirely to himself. Hannes increasingly exploits Judith, who is helpless and becoming more and more mentally confused, for his devious purposes, and repeatedly sexually abuses her as she lies helpless. Judith can only endure the rapes as if lifeless. Bianca Weber, Judith’s former employee, is the only one still trying to reach Judith, but Hannes prevents her. Bianca does not give up, however, and eventually files a police report against Hannes, saying that he is holding Judith against her will. Hannes, meanwhile, wants to report Bianca for the alleged theft from the shop’s cash register. While Hannes accompanies the police officers to the station, Judith uses her last reserves of strength to make her way into the apartment opposite, for which Hannes has the keys. There, Judith finds a series of photo albums and videos featuring her and other women whom Hannes had already stalked with the same pathological intensity before her. Judith eventually staggers barefoot into the street and begs passersby for help, mostly through frantic looks and with very few words. But because of her strange behavior, they turn away and walk off. In desperation, Judith flees to her nearby chandelier shop, which she is able to enter with the key she has with her. From there she calls Bianca, who alerts the police and rushes to help Judith. When confronted by Hannes, who has followed her there, Judith drops a heavy chandelier on him and then stabs him, because he has not yet succumbed to his severe injuries from the sharp crystals. Bianca has meanwhile arrived, and during one of her hallucinations Judith briefly believes that she killed Bianca, rather than Hannes, with the chandelier and her additional knife stabs. But then she sees Hannes lying dead in a pool of blood on the floor again, and, crying with gratitude, clings to Bianca, who is standing beside her. It seems that she did not stab Bianca after all. In the next scene, Judith is outside her shop, wrapped in a thermal blanket and receiving medical attention from an emergency doctor; the nightmare seems to be over. The final image is of a man’s hand playing with the ring set with a large stone that Hannes put on Judith’s finger in Venice. Judith had taken the ring off after breaking up with Hannes in Venice following his rape of her. The ring was also shown in the film’s opening scene, when Hannes stood at the grave of the pharmacist he had been involved with before Judith and whom he had apparently poisoned as well. This final image leaves room for speculation about what was imagined and what was real, and whether Hannes may still be alive after all.