Wer früher stirbt ist länger tot (2006)

In the fictional Upper Bavarian village of Germringen, eleven-year-old Sebastian Schneider lives with his single father, Lorenz, the owner of the Kandler inn, and his older brother, Franz. Sebastian is a mischievous boy who, during an argument one day, learns from his brother that their mother, Sophie, did not die in an accident, as he had always been told, but died giving birth to Sebastian. His angry brother blames Sebastian alone for their mother’s death. Sebastian takes the accusation deeply to heart and feels guilty from then on. Franz also tells him that after death you have to atone in Purgatory if you have committed too many sins. While Sebastian torments himself with guilt in his bedroom, some villagers rehearse a farce at his father’s inn, in which a witch trial takes place. Sebastian hears parts of the play and, in recurring nightmares, blends his self-reproach with his ideas about the Last Judgment. Sebastian has already played a great many pranks and imagines that he will be sentenced to “14 years in Purgatory.” To escape this fate, he tries to become immortal. From the regulars at the inn, he learns that you can become immortal by having children. When he asks his teacher, Mrs. Dorstreiter, whether she might “want to screw him,” he gets into trouble. He then decides to learn guitar, because on a school outing he heard from radio host Alfred, the husband of his teacher Mrs. Dorstreiter, that music can make you immortal. When Sebastian realizes that becoming immortal is impossible, he decides to find his father a new wife so he can cleanse himself of his sins and make amends for the guilt he believes he bears. His school friend Evi, who is in love with him, helps him. Sebastian tries to match his father with Evi’s mother, since she meets the criteria that, according to the regulars, a woman should have: “Brains, skill, and a good ass.” She can also “read the riot act.” The two children try to help the match along with a prayer. Their prayers are answered, however, only with regard to Lorenz Schneider, who falls in love with Sebastian’s teacher, Mrs. Dorstreiter—and she returns his feelings. But Sebastian now faces another problem: his teacher is married to radio host Alfred. Driven by his delusions and nightmares, the boy initially decides to kill Alfred. Armed with a revolver, he climbs up to the radio station on Mount Wendelstein. There he finds the radio host, who has already learned about the relationship between Lorenz and Veronika Dorstreiter. Alfred has hanged himself in the studio, but is still alive and gasping for help. Sebastian aims the revolver at the hanged man and shoots through the rope hanging from the ceiling, either deliberately or by accident, then calls emergency services. Afterwards, unaware that Alfred had filled the glass with an overdose of sleeping pills in an earlier suicide attempt, Sebastian drinks from it and loses consciousness. After Sebastian and Alfred have both recovered, Sebastian visits Alfred at the station, where Alfred has him play guitar live on the radio (“Now we’re going to make you immortal”).