The Silence (2010 film)

The Silence
Directed by	Baran bo Odar
Produced by	Frank Evers Maren Lüthje Florian Schneider Jörg Schulze
Written by	Baran bo Odar
Based on	Das Schweigen by Jan Costin Wagner
Starring	Ulrich Thomsen Wotan Wilke Möhring Katrin Sass
Music by	Michael Kamm Kris Steininger Tim Allhoff
Cinematography	Nikolaus Summerer
Edited by	Robert Rzesacz
Production company	Cine Plus Lüthje & Schneider Filmproduktion Das Kleine Fernsehspiel (ZDF) ARTE
Release date	19 August 2010 (2010-08-19)
Running time	118 minutes
Country	Germany
Language	German
Budget	€2,300,000

The Silence (German: Das letzte Schweigen) is a 2010 German thriller film directed by Baran bo Odar, after the German crime fiction novel The Silence (German: Das Schweigen) by Jan Costin Wagner.

Summer 1986: Pia, an 11-year-old schoolgirl, is raped and murdered in a wheat field near a small provincial German town by one man while another man watches silently from the passenger seat of his red car. The murderer packs Pia's body into the trunk of the car and leaves her bicycle behind.

In 2009, exactly 23 years later, 13-year-old Sinikka Weghamm goes missing from the local fair. Her bicycle is discovered in the same spot where Pia's bike had been found.

Senior detective Krischan Mittich, who investigated the original murder, has just retired. The new murder investigation is undertaken by David Jahn, a detective who is still emotionally overwhelmed by the death of his wife five months earlier. Mittich takes an interest in the new case, but he is blocked from participating by the new senior detective, Matthias Grimmer, who insists on doing things his way, even when he is wrong.

A flashback shows the initial meeting of Pia's murderer, Danish national Peer Sommer, and his companion, a student named Timo. The men form a bond as Sommer shares his collection of pornographic films, including one that shows the abuse of an adolescent girl, with Timo.

Timo leaves after Pia's murder, to Sommer's dismay.

Mittich, the retired detective, visits Pia's mother and rails against the false hope that detective Grimmer holds out for Sinikka's parents, who grow increasingly upset at the lack of progress in the investigation.

Timo, who has married, taken his wife's last name, and had two children of his own, is now an architect. Upon hearing of the new murder, he leaves home and makes his way back to Sommer. Sommer is glad to see his old friend and says that he'd tried unsuccessfully to find Timo after he'd left 23 years earlier. Sommer gives Timo a DVD copy of the old film with the girl.

Timo leaves Sommer again. He watches the DVD in his hotel room and cries with shame and guilt. He goes to see Pia's mother. His questions about Pia make the mother suspicious, and she tells ex-detective Mittich about him. Timo goes to the police station, presumably to confess, and Jahn notices him in the parking lot about to exit his car, but Timo has second thoughts and leaves.