Unterm Birnbaum (1973)

The innkeeper Abel Hradschek is weighed down by debt. His wife, Ursula, reproaches him for his gambling addiction in their own inn. He, in turn, criticizes her for always pretending to have and be more than others, with the lifestyle she has adopted. She comes from a wealthy family in the Hanover region, was disowned by her family for becoming an actress, and converted from Catholicism to Protestantism for Abel. Their children died several years ago. The debt collector Szulski has announced that he is coming to the village, and Abel would have to hand over all his possessions to him. When Abel finds an old skeleton while digging beneath the pear tree, he and Ursula devise a plan. The debt collector arrives and apparently leaves early the next morning. In reality, it is Ursula wearing his clothes. A little later, the small carriage is found overturned by the Oder. The horse is dead, and Szulski has vanished without a trace. Only his cap is found. The Hradscheks are suspected of murder, and their neighbor Jeschken testifies that she saw Abel digging by the pear tree that night. The villagers gather, but beneath the pear tree they find only the old skeleton. The priest then preaches against the villagers’ hasty suspicions, portraying the Hradscheks as people who will always be suspected because they are newcomers, but not as guilty. While Abel looks ahead to the future with enterprise and renovates the house, Ursula, a deeply devout woman, is broken by her guilt. When she tries to confess to the priest, he sends her away. Abel, too, seems to have grown distant from her. She can no longer find her way to God, and eventually falls seriously ill and dies shortly afterward. Abel, meanwhile, edges toward madness. When his farmhand claims that Szulski’s ghost is haunting the cellar, Abel decides to dig up the tax collector’s body, which is indeed buried there, and sink it in the Vistula. He falls on his way down to the cellar. The next day, the village mayor and the farmers find him dead. Beside him, Szulski’s hand protrudes from the ground.