Hannes (2021)

The two 19-year-olds, Moritz and Hannes, have been best friends since early childhood, even though they could hardly be more different. Moritz is a little dreamy and keeps getting himself into trouble, while the free-spirited Hannes knows exactly what he wants. Hannes’s great ambition is to ride their motorcycles together to Cape Horn, and he is saving money for it bit by bit. When he realizes that Moritz won’t be able to pay his share of the trip, he secretly starts saving for him too. On a motorcycle trip together, Moritz’s poorly maintained bike breaks down yet again. After Hannes gets it running, they switch motorcycles at his suggestion, because he believes he’ll be better able to handle the troublesome bike. Shortly afterward, on a straight stretch of road and for no apparent external reason, Hannes crashes and is thrown down a slope. He suffers a traumatic brain injury, which leaves him in a coma with an uncertain chance of regaining consciousness. From the very beginning, Moritz, who had never held a job until then, spends as much time as possible at his friend’s bedside. Hannes’s entire circle, including his parents and his girlfriend Nele, blame Moritz for the accident, so at first they avoid him and treat him very aggressively. Moritz visits the care home where Hannes had worked and lived, and offers to fill in for him, assuming Hannes will recover soon. In Hannes’s room, he finds his diary, in which he learns a great deal about Hannes’s view of him, as well as the money Hannes had secretly saved for Moritz. At work, he discovers that one of the residents is his former homeroom teacher, Barbara Stemmerle, who feels responsible for her granddaughter Jasmin’s death while she was in her care. She does not remember Moritz, however, and makes several advances toward him. He also begins an affair with Dr. Iris Redlich, the doctor who works there, but ends it when he learns that she is married. At the same time, Moritz gets back in touch with his father, who began a new relationship after the death of Moritz’s mother, causing father and son to grow estranged. Moritz offers to take care of Hannes’s dog and repair his motorcycle, which was badly damaged in the accident. For the time being, his father lends him his Triumph with a sidecar. It turns out that Nele became pregnant shortly before Hannes’s accident and is expecting a daughter, whom she also brings along on her hospital visits after she is born. Although Hannes’s condition initially improves steadily—he begins breathing on his own, regains his swallowing reflex, opens his eyes, and squeezes a hand in response to questions—it gradually worsens, and Hannes dies. Moritz then makes the trip to Cape Horn alone and records these experiences in Hannes’s diary, which he has kept writing ever since he found it. When the journey ends, Moritz also stops working on the diary.