Gott schützt die Liebenden (2008)

Paul Holland, a war photographer by profession, returns from abroad, wounded by war. He is shocked to discover that his great love, Sybille, is nowhere to be found. He sees blood smeared in their apartment and suspects it came from her. The police, whom he informs, are baffled. As events unfold, Paul realizes that he actually knows very little about his girlfriend. In Salzburg, Paul meets Petra Wendt, who knew Sybille in earlier years. However, it turns out that back then she went by the name Victoria Brunswick. The police had infiltrated her into the German terrorist scene as a mole, but she switched sides there, shot a lawyer, and has been living under a false name ever since. She is believed to possess documents incriminating the state. Since the police assume Sybille will contact Paul, they detain him in Salzburg. Sure enough, she gets in touch with him. Although he wants nothing to do with a “murderess,” he wants to help her escape. He smuggles both of them out of the city on a tourist bus to the Dachstein, where he hides her in a small mountain hotel accessible only by cable car. A storm prevents him from returning to the city right away, so they have to spend the night together. During the night, Sybille tells him that several years earlier she shot her former police handler, Günter Enders, at his private home, where he lived under the name Emilio Trenti. After a night of lovemaking, Paul changes his mind and decides that he does want to live with Sybille, in Brazil, where he has the prospect of a correspondent’s job. To that end, he plans to get Sybille a fake passport with a visa. When Paul goes to collect the forged documents in Salzburg, Petra confronts him and, at gunpoint, forces him to summon Sybille back to the city. When they meet at the station, Petra reveals that she is a police agent and the daughter of Trenti, whom Sybille shot. She demands the incriminating documents, which do not exist, to no avail, then leaves to make way for the task force that is to arrest Sybille. At that point, Sybille takes a sawn-off shotgun from her bag and shoots herself. During a scuffle over the gun just beforehand, Paul is also shot in the chest, but narrowly survives. After recovering, Paul rails at God because he was not allowed to die alongside his beloved, even though God usually protects lovers. He writes a novel telling the story of himself and Sybille as a final gift. Afterwards, his agency sends Paul to Africa, where his plane crashes.