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Wonderful character development!

Waste of time

Admirable film.

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

8th July of 1986.Eleven year old Pia is raped and murdered by Peer (Ulrich Thomsen)while the second man Timo (Wotan Wilke Möhring)watches disgusted and aroused.23 years later another girl goes missing.Her bike and bag is left at the same spot where in 1986 Pia was raped and murdered.Who is behind this 'copy-cat' killing?"The Silence" is a beautifully made and extremely well-acted crime drama about grief and guilt.There is plenty of sorrow and some stellar acting performances.The characters are somber and the cinematography is visually stunning.The plot keeps viewers guessing.Golden fields where young girls were raped and murdered.Peaceful lake where their bodies were found.Green islet of trees among the fields.Omnious silence and hidden secrets/perversions.8 silent screams out of 10.

Based on the novel by Jan Costin Wagner, "The Silence" is a fascinating, beautifully realized crime drama from Germany.The movie centers around two identical crimes, both occurring at the identical place, though 23 years apart. Both involve the murder and possible rape of a young girl biking alone through an isolated meadow.The script by Baran bo Odar examines the case from the viewpoints of the perpetrators, the victims, the victims' families, and the law enforcement officials who have some pretty intense psychological issues of their own to deal with. The life-shattering impact on the parents, along with their inconsolable grief, the frustrations of the investigators, the remorse and guilt (or lack thereof) on the part of the criminals - all are woven into a rich tapestry that mixes crime-and-detection elements with generous dollops of morbid psychology.The most interesting character is Timo Friedrich (superbly enacted by Wotan Wilke Mohring), an "accomplice" to the initial crime and a prime suspect in the second, who has so many inner demons of his own to account for that he has become utterly consumed by feelings of guilt and self-loathing.Unlike in the typical American police procedural, the investigators here are not played by drop-dead gorgeous movie stars but by frumpy, slightly saggy and balding middle-aged performers who look like actual honest-to-God people you might encounter in real life. And all are excellent.In addition, the movie doesn't cater to the audience's desire for a clear-cut resolution, and in so doing, acknowledges that life does not always work out the way it does in the movies.Odar's direction is both spare and slightly surreal at times, so that the world he's portraying always feels strangely off-kilter, as befits the subject matter.A triumph for all concerned, "The Silence" is easily one of the best movies of 2013 thus far.

THE SILENCE is a German murder mystery that's heavily indebted to two separate sources: firstly, the whole look and mood of the currently-popular Scandinavian cop shows (such as THE KILLING), from which the style of music is frequently ripped off (like that whole thing with a single, deep note held for a while). Meanwhile, the plot and police investigation bear more than a hint of the exceptional South Korean drama, MEMORIES OF MURDER.What follows is predictable but occasionally highly gripping, and strangely enough different sub-plots in the movie have different levels of interest. I admit that I found the whole police investigation to be pretty dull; there isn't actually much investigating taking place, and it all seems very slow and stately. The scenes of grieving parents are so familiar by now that they didn't affect me at all.A second, alternate part of the film follows the friendship between two men, one of whom is a paedophile and murderer. This part of the film is exceptionally, dealing with dodgy subject matter in an intensely gripping way. Ulrich Thomsen (from THE THING remake) and Wotan Wilke Mohring are both very good here, and I would have much preferred the whole film to concentrate on these two by doing away with the predictable police stuff altogether. However, what we're left with is a real film of two halves; one's powerful stuff indeed, and the other's best forgotten.

If you're in the mood for a dark, compelling police procedural "The Silence" is well worth seeing. In Germany 1986 an 11 year old girl is murdered while bicycling home. Years later the community must come to grips with a similar murder of another young girl and the realization that they have a serial killer in their midst. The police response consists of a bureaucratic, supervising detective primarily concerned with allaying public fears; a detective who commiserates with the victims' families but who's also struggling with the loss of his wife to natural causes and a retired detective anxious to not allow the killer to escape justice this time. Director Baran bo Odar does an excellent job of creating a chilling atmosphere that never slackens. The term "nail biter" may be overused but I feel it's entirely justified in this case. The evil depicted here seems all the more terrifying because it is so banal. Almost like a Nordic "Fargo" this community hardly seems as if a dark day would descend on it and yet the rustic fields and lakes yield horrors. The cast is first rate especially Ulrich Thomsen and Wotan Wilke Mohring. Katrin Sab gives a beautifully controlled performance as the mother of the original victim. Sebastian Blomberg is the detective who spends as much time fighting his own demons as working on the case.