(I'm afraid there are going to be some spoilers. However, I'll try to limit their number and scope.)
An unusually original, clever and intelligent thriller, well capable of competing with the best of American output. There are also some scenes which, once seen, cannot be unseen : I defy anyone to forget Gert Fröbe and his winsome skull-like rictus.
However - and in this case it's a rather large "however" - the movie is not without its problems.
Problem one : the movie tells of a (retired) police inspector who is determined to catch a child killer. In order to do so he uses another, completely innocent and unsuspecting child as bait, in the same way that a hunter might tie a bleating goat to a tree. This is seriously, seriously unethical behavior, especially if one takes into account the fact that both the little girl and her mother regard the police inspector as their kindly benefactor. The movie does not fully explore the moral (or rather, immoral) weight and ramifications of this act.
Problem two concerns the psychological evolution of the (retired) police inspector. When the movie starts, the inspector is shown as a pretty decent policeman - not a saint, perhaps, nor a bundle of laughs, but certainly someone with a working conscience and a sense of right and wrong. This, in other words, is a man who knows there are certain lines one should not cross. Later on, the same man tethers a goat / child to a tree, which is a hideously transgressive act. So where does this ruthlessness (or cruelty, or callousness, or blindness, or fanaticism, or...) come from ? Why, and how, does the man give himself permission to behave like this ? What has happened to his heart, his soul ? Feel free to ask the question, but do not count on the movie to give you an answer, or even a beginning of an answer...
An unusually original, clever and intelligent thriller, well capable of competing with the best of American output. There are also some scenes which, once seen, cannot be unseen : I defy anyone to forget Gert Fröbe and his winsome skull-like rictus.
However - and in this case it's a rather large "however" - the movie is not without its problems.
Problem one : the movie tells of a (retired) police inspector who is determined to catch a child killer. In order to do so he uses another, completely innocent and unsuspecting child as bait, in the same way that a hunter might tie a bleating goat to a tree. This is seriously, seriously unethical behavior, especially if one takes into account the fact that both the little girl and her mother regard the police inspector as their kindly benefactor. The movie does not fully explore the moral (or rather, immoral) weight and ramifications of this act.
Problem two concerns the psychological evolution of the (retired) police inspector. When the movie starts, the inspector is shown as a pretty decent policeman - not a saint, perhaps, nor a bundle of laughs, but certainly someone with a working conscience and a sense of right and wrong. This, in other words, is a man who knows there are certain lines one should not cross. Later on, the same man tethers a goat / child to a tree, which is a hideously transgressive act. So where does this ruthlessness (or cruelty, or callousness, or blindness, or fanaticism, or...) come from ? Why, and how, does the man give himself permission to behave like this ? What has happened to his heart, his soul ? Feel free to ask the question, but do not count on the movie to give you an answer, or even a beginning of an answer...