Verlorenes Land (2002)

Postwar Germany in the 1950s. Maria lives in a rural town in Bavaria. Her husband, Hans, is missing in action. She finds a new love in Jean-Pierre, a former French prisoner of war who earns his living working on the farm owned by Maria’s parents-in-law. During his stay in Germany, the charming Jean-Pierre has already learned German and adapted remarkably well to life here. However, Jean-Pierre misses the coast. This is something he shares with Maria, who would also like to see the sea one day. Moreover, Maria never really had the chance to form a close bond with her husband, Hans, since he was called up for military service shortly after their wedding. Now, all she really wants is to be happy with Jean-Pierre—especially since Karl, her own son, also seems to have accepted Jean-Pierre as his new father. Maria’s parents-in-law tolerate the affair between her and Jean-Pierre, even though they have not given up hope that their missing son, Hans, might one day come home after all. The last they heard, he had supposedly been taken prisoner by the Soviets. Amid the general turmoil of their lives, everyone tries to make their own happiness: Lisa, the farm owner’s illegitimate daughter, tries to start a relationship with Otto, a disabled war veteran, because she believes he would be a worthy father to her daughter, Gitti. Meanwhile, Hans’s brother Franz tries to earn a living through novel inventions, together with his lively girlfriend, Fanni. The film takes a dramatic turn when Maria’s husband, Hans, suddenly returns home, badly wounded but alive. No one had expected him to return, and to make matters worse, his time as a prisoner of war seems to have stripped him of all his human qualities. Contrary to his own expectations, his appearance causes alarm rather than joy in his family.