Winterreise (2006)

Franz Brenninger, who had made a name and a fortune for himself as a Bavarian hardware dealer, is on the verge of bankruptcy. His unpredictable temper makes him unbearable to those around him, and he argues at every opportunity. Only his wife, Martha, still stands by him. A letter from Kenyan businesspeople brings him into contact with Leyla, a high-school graduate who is about to study ethnology and translates the letter from English for him. It is from a Kenyan man named Tom Kanabe. His uncle is supposedly owed 15 million dollars from a business deal. But because he would have to pay 60 percent tax on the proceeds in Kenya, Brenninger is to act as a front man and receive a handsome commission of 750,000 dollars; first, however, he must put up 50,000 euros as “security.” Just then, an ophthalmologist also presses Brenninger to have his wife operated on within four weeks, or she could go completely blind. The procedure, which costs 30,000 euros, is not covered by health insurance. Brenninger’s son Xaver, a branch manager at a home-improvement store, cashes in a building-savings contract and transfers the money for the operation to his father’s account. But Brenninger uses it to go ahead with the dubious deal with the Kenyans. When he realizes that it is probably an advance-fee scam, he sets off for Kenya with Leyla as his interpreter, determined to track down the fraudsters and get his money back. There, the German ambassador and his assistant advise him to stay out of it and abandon the search. But although things initially seem completely hopeless, they take a positive turn. Brenninger makes contact with another hotel guest, a German who has already lived in Kenya for many years. It turns out that he shares Franz Schubert’s Winterreise with Brenninger’s enthusiasm, when Brenninger performs a piece from the song cycle on the hotel piano. The man explains to Leyla how the piece describes depression and quotes from the song “The Sun-Dogs,” in which the narrator loses his mind and sees three suns in the sky. Through this man, Brenninger eventually gets the crucial information he needs to track down the gangsters. After a long drive through the Kenyan desert, he finds one of the fraudsters, overpowers him, and takes 200,000 dollars from him. On the drive back through the desert, he lets Leyla continue alone and take the money home. He shoots himself. Just before that, three suns had still been visible in the sky. After the two shots, the two mock suns also went out.