Königskinder (2003)

The teenagers Merle and Abel are a couple. They live in a small village in northern Germany. Abel dreams of becoming a stuntman in Hollywood, while Merle is a good student. She is about to take her Abitur exams and hopes to go to university afterward. Abel’s father is a lock keeper. He thinks nothing of his son’s plans and wants Abel to become a lock keeper too. Only Abel’s mother has a little understanding for the teenager. Merle lives alone with her father. After a party, Merle throws up. A few weeks later, she discovers that she is seventeen weeks pregnant. It is already too late for an abortion. The teenagers decide to keep the pregnancy secret. Abel tells his parents he wants to attend a stuntman course in Hamburg, where he could then get a scholarship to a stunt school in Los Angeles. Merle, meanwhile, says she is going to Hamburg to take a computer course. Given a little money by their parents, the teenagers arrive in Hamburg. The money is just enough for cheap accommodation. Merle hides away in the hotel room while Abel earns some money doing odd jobs. Time passes, and Merle’s pregnancy becomes increasingly visible. After a hotel guest makes an inappropriate advance toward Merle, they move to another place to stay. Since Abel is still rather childlike in some ways, he is overwhelmed by the impending birth. But Merle wants nothing to do with giving birth in a hospital. So Abel gets his friend Oliver to help. Oliver delivers the baby while Abel has to wait outside. After the birth, Merle sees only one way out: the baby hatch. Abel takes the baby there. In the hatch is a note, on which he makes an imprint of the baby’s hand. Then he puts the baby inside and walks away. As soon as the hatch closes, an alarm goes off, and the baby is taken care of. Back home in their village, life at first seems to return to normal. But Merle becomes increasingly withdrawn. Abel then goes back to the baby hatch in Hamburg on his own, wanting to get the child back. After speaking with Merle on the phone from there, they bring the baby to Merle. Abel wants to take up an apprenticeship in the village and give up his dream of becoming a stuntman. Merle then silently hands him a gift and leaves before he has opened it. It is a street map of Los Angeles. The next day, Abel secretly leaves his parents’ home and sets off for America. A few years later, Merle has settled into village life with her toddler. The boy’s grandfather, the lock keeper, gives him a card from his father. But the child lets go of the card, and it falls into the water. No one has read what Abel wrote. Merle only says that one day he’ll write again.