Vernehmung der Zeugen (1987)

The teenager Maximilian stabs his classmate Rainer, who is the same age, to death. Maximilian’s mother, a doctor, has to certify Rainer’s death and also recognizes from the murder weapon that her son is the killer. Maximilian is arrested. Witness statements reveal the background to the crime. Maximilian has lived with his grandmother in Berlin since his school days. Now, shortly before his 18th birthday, his mother Beate brings him back to live with her family. Maximilian has to say goodbye to his friends and to his great passion, sailing. He has to move from Berlin to a small village where his mother works as a doctor. An additional strain is his mother’s new relationship with Gunnar Strach, whom she also intends to marry soon. Gunnar and Maximilian do not get along. Maximilian also has problems at school, despite being a good student. A constant struggle for dominance develops between him and Rainer, the class leader. Both boys fall in love with their classmate Viola, who was Rainer’s girlfriend before Maximilian arrived, but now finds herself caught between the two boys. A friendship develops among all three, and Maximilian takes them both to Berlin to go sailing. When Maximilian gives Viola a dog that he had previously received from his mother and Gunnar, Rainer becomes suspicious. At a campfire with other classmates, Maximilian sings, among other things, love songs while playing the guitar. When Viola asks him to keep singing, Rainer drags her into a nearby wooded area. Maximilian runs after them, but shortly afterward sees them making love. Viola and Rainer are now a couple, especially since Viola is pregnant by Rainer. Viola gives Maximilian his dog back. His classmates humiliate him in front of the whole class, and the struggle for dominance between him and Rainer turns into a showdown between Maximilian and Rainer’s friends, which Maximilian cannot win. Beate and Gunnar, who are increasingly arguing with each other themselves, are no help to Maximilian, and his grandmother cannot offer any advice either. When the dog runs away to Viola again, Rainer gives Maximilian a deadline to collect the animal. Maximilian lets the deadline pass, and Rainer kills the dog and leaves it outside Maximilian’s house. Enraged, Maximilian runs after Rainer and stabs him when Rainer greets him with a provocative remark. Rainer is buried. Beate knows Maximilian will never be able to set foot in the village again. She herself will always be known as the doctor whose son is a murderer. Gunnar has suffered a nervous breakdown, and it is unclear whether he will return to Beate. Maximilian faces several years in prison for manslaughter. He remarks that, really, all they had been looking forward to was the school holidays.