Wunderkinder (2011)

The story is told as a flashback within a brief framing story set in the present: celebrated violin virtuoso Hanna Reich is giving her final concert. During the rehearsal, an old man appears unannounced at the hall door, claiming to know Hanna. He is turned away, but leaves behind the old manuscript of a piece of music and a personal message for Hanna. When Hanna sees them, she is shocked. Her granddaughter Nina, who arrived at the rehearsal shortly beforehand, wants to know what they mean. Hanna begins to tell her. This marks the beginning of the film’s main story. Before the German invasion of the Soviet Union, Hanna Reich lives in the eastern Ukrainian city of Poltava as the daughter of Max Reich, a wealthy German businessman. Her father runs a large brewery there. Hanna takes violin lessons. At a concert, she sees Abrascha Kaplan and Larissa Brodsky, two Jewish children about her age who are celebrated in the city as “wunderkinder” for their virtuoso playing of the violin and piano, respectively. Together with their teacher, Irina Salomonowa, Abrascha and Larissa set off on a tour of Moscow and Leningrad. A concert at Carnegie Hall is planned as well. After seeing them perform, Hanna asks her father if she can one day practice with Larissa and Abrascha. Once their music teacher has also agreed, Max Reich grants his daughter’s wish. At first, however, Larissa and Abrascha are suspicious of her. After a while, their suspicions prove unfounded, and the three develop a close friendship. Their friendship is put to a severe test when Hitler declares war on the Soviet Union. Max Reich, his wife, and Hanna are to be arrested by the NKVD as enemy aliens. With the help of Abrascha’s and Larissa’s Jewish families, the Reich family manages to escape to their own brewery and hide there. When this hiding place becomes too unsafe, the family flees to an abandoned cabin in the woods, where no one ever passes by. The children’s friendship grows closer, and the three friends compose the “Friendship Score” together, which recurs throughout the film as its music. As the German army advances farther into Ukraine, Brodsky’s hospital is bombed and the city is occupied by the Germans. Near their forest hideout, the Reichs identify themselves as Germans to passing SS troops and are able to return to their home under the protection of SS-Standartenführer Schwartow. At the same time, Jewish homes are being looted. A valuable violin is seized from one of the houses, and Schwartow, who is fond of music, gives it to Hanna. On the journey home, she had told him that the Reichs owed their escape from arrest after the outbreak of war to the families of two musical “wunderkinder.” That very day, Abrascha’s and Larissa’s grandparents are deported. At the last minute, Max Reich manages to protect their music teacher, Irina. Reich realizes he must act: he hides both Jewish families and Irina in the very brewery cellar where his own family had been hiding just a few weeks earlier. When Max Reich suddenly has to leave, however, the Jewish families are locked in the cellar. Abrascha manages to get out and fetch Hanna. With the help of Alexis, a brewery worker, those trapped manage to escape the brewery unnoticed in a beer truck. But the refugees encounter a German patrol in the woods. A firefight breaks out. Irina shoots German soldiers, but she and Alexis are mortally wounded in return. Hanna is in shock and ends up in a labor camp for Jewish children. Later, the mistake is discovered and Hanna is allowed to return to her family. However, the shock has taken away her speech, and she can only make herself understood in writing on a slate. Meanwhile, the two Jewish families flee to the cabin in the woods. But the SS are already waiting for them there, and they are subjected to “special treatment.” In a conversation, Max Reich manages to influence Schwartow and save Abrascha and Larissa. However, the children must give a flawless concert on Heinrich Himmler’s birthday; only then will their survival be assured. If they fail, the two “wunderkinder” will die. Schwartow had hinted as much to Larissa while peeling an apple with a pocketknife and telling the child that musical perfection at the concert was essential to her survival. In reality, Schwartow wants and expects them to make mistakes in their performance. On October 7, 1941, Himmler’s birthday, the two perform before the assembled Nazi leadership. Abrascha plays magnificently. Onstage, images of horror flash through Larissa’s mind, triggered by her unsettling conversation with Schwartow. Overwhelmed by thoughts of losing her family, she collapses onstage. The film’s ending returns to the framing story. The elderly Hanna tells her granddaughter that Schwartow had Larissa murdered, along with hundreds of other children. Abrascha was sent to a camp. She never heard from him again. But then the hall door opens, and after decades Hanna and Abrascha are face to face once more. Abrascha tells her he never played the violin again; after they were separated, the magic was gone. He only ever saw Carnegie Hall from the outside. By the lake, Hanna and Abrascha each place a white lily in the water, one for Larissa and one for all the murdered children.