Gelb ist nicht nur die Farbe der Sonne (1979)

Ten-year-old Brigitte is vacationing on the Baltic coast with her father, Peter. Her little brother is staying with their grandmother, and her mother has to work. The vacation days pass harmoniously, as father and daughter get along very well. He jokingly calls her “Princess”; they often go swimming, and Brigitte keeps a diary of their vacation together. From time to time, they both notice that they miss the other two members of the family, but it hardly spoils their vacation. One day, a strange woman is occupying their beach chair. The beautiful young woman introduces herself as Miss Lorenz and explains that she has come to sail on the Baltic with her brother and her boyfriend. She leaves after a short while, but forgets her sunglasses. Brigitte and Peter look for her at the marina, and Miss Lorenz shows them the boat. After that, Peter, Brigitte, and Miss Lorenz spend more and more of their vacation together, but Brigitte soon begins to feel left out. Her father no longer gives her as much time as before, and the child suspects that Peter might start an affair with Miss Lorenz. The initial warmth turns to hostility. Brigitte increasingly reacts coldly to Miss Lorenz, destroys gifts she has given her, insults her when she is not there, and eventually bursts into tears. Her father does not understand the reason for her hostility and concludes that she is ill, but the doctor can find no sign of any illness. Peter is changing a tire and has only loosely tightened the nuts on the new wheel when he is called to the telephone at the local post office. His wife is on the line. Brigitte wants to go with him, but because of her health she is supposed to stay at the house. Brigitte accuses her father of not letting her speak to her mother only because of Miss Lorenz, and Peter is shocked. While Peter is away, Miss Lorenz turns up and borrows the car for an errand, as they had arranged some time earlier. Brigitte does not warn her that the wheel is loose. A year later, a lieutenant in the criminal police receives an anonymous submission: a girl's diary. Several pages are missing, so the writer's identity is unknown. Alongside accounts of vacation days, the diary contains drawings. They include a lighthouse, as well as a yellow car falling off a cliff. Because of this picture, the lieutenant's superior has decided that he should investigate the possible case at the start of his Baltic vacation. His boss suspects that the picture was merely the product of the girl's imagination. The investigator does, in fact, locate the lighthouse that Brigitte, Peter, and Miss Lorenz had visited. Peter had forgotten his camera, which the investigator takes with him. He has the photographs developed. Using them, he finds the marina, where at first he sees only two men working on the boat in question, before Miss Lorenz comes out of the cabin and leaves the boat. The investigator now thinks that the drawing really was only fantasy. The local police officer explains to him that such an accident did in fact happen the previous year: As Miss Lorenz drove off, she met Peter after only a short distance, and he took over the car. His wife had told him that she was already waiting for him at the train station and wanted to spend the rest of the vacation with him and Brigitte. Peter makes it clear to Miss Lorenz that their vacation together is now over, especially since Brigitte has made some unpleasant insinuations. It was Peter who crashed the car. On the cliff road, the wheel comes off, and the car plunges down the coast and explodes. The lieutenant asks the local police officer for the address of the mother and daughter, even though the case has already been closed.