Unter dem Eis (2005)

Jenny loves her life: her husband, her seven-year-old son Tim, and her home on the edge of town. One afternoon, when she comes home from visiting her friend Sandra, she finds her completely distraught son crying in the basement. Tim leads her into the woods, where Sandra’s seven-year-old daughter is lying dead in the snow. Everything points to Tim bearing some responsibility for Luzi’s death. Panicked and wanting to protect her son, Jenny impresses on Tim that he must keep the truth secret. No one must connect him with Luzi’s death—not even Michael, her own husband and Tim’s father, who is a police investigator and is doing everything he can to solve the case. Jenny firmly believes she can protect Tim and her family, and fails to realize that her son is breaking under the strain of the secret. He pushes boundaries and rebels, makes up strange stories, can no longer sleep at night, and is plagued by nightmares. When Tim’s class teacher, Frau Pötter, raises concerns about his unusual behavior, Jenny brushes her off. Michael, too, notices that his son and wife have changed. But his attempts to confront Jenny are half-hearted, and he also closes his eyes to the increasingly obvious signs that his family is falling apart. The more Tim changes, the more desperately Jenny represses reality. And the more she ignores his distress, the greater the danger of being found out. She entangles herself and her son in a web of lies. Tim withdraws further and further, lies, and, like his mother, constructs a world of make-believe. Jenny is on the verge of collapsing under the weight of her guilt. Desperate, she turns to her mother, Hildegard, but Hildegard does not want to know the truth. Then, suddenly, a completely new possibility dawns on Jenny: one can live with the lie. Thanks to Tim’s class teacher’s involvement, Michael eventually learns that his son is exhibiting behavioral problems and needs professional help. After a sleepless night, Michael makes a momentous decision. Aelrun Goette leaves the resulting turning point in the film, and thus its ending, to the audience. Despite this open ending, however, it is clear that Michael has discovered the secret.