Aus dem Nichts ( In The Fade )

Here we see three nationalities that so casually come to the mind of the police chief in the investigation as possible perpetrators of a bomb attack with victims including her Kurdish-origin husband and their small child. After all, the perpetrators do not belong to any of these nationalities; they are German neo-Nazis! How typical, you might say. Moreover, the fact that in the case against them, they were exonerated because the evidence was not deemed sufficiently incriminating, is not at all unusual. Needless to say, if the nationalities of the victim and perpetrator were reversed, the incriminating evidence presented in court would have been more than enough!

Yiannis Oikonomidis, who plays a Greek gold digger in the play, comes as a defense witness and offers his like-minded friends an "unshakable" alibi, which may have played a role in the final outcome of the case. He has them written in his hotel notebook, so on that date, "apparently", they were supposedly on holiday in Greece. Beware of this kind of alibi; it is often found in such cases, generally speaking.

Let me say at this point that the representation of the trial was excellent. You really felt like you were inside the German court watching closely. The only thing I missed, perhaps for even greater realism, was for the accuser to call the accused to answer questions, where perhaps by exposing their worldview themselves, they could incriminate themselves more easily. On the other hand, Fatih Akin spared us from unnecessary provocations, as I wouldn't have any desire to listen to their nationalist rants at night either...!

Indeed, I would say that the film shifts its focus to the systemic injustice the protagonist feels, as well as the path of self-righteousness she is forced to follow. Hence, at times the film seems a bit slow, as the now burned-out mother and widow struggles on one hand to endure the unspeakable pain inside her and on the other to find the strength to deliver justice as it should be. But, of course, as a film by the great Fatih Akin, it can never be boring after all.

The ending, then, and the self-righteousness that she chose to carry out, was also my favorite part of the film, as strange as that may sound. Of course, I can't reveal it to you, because that would be a spoiler, but what I can say, and the reason it touched me, is because it was so desperate (since whatever you do, the system will find it against you) and poetic, at the same time..!

In the end credits, we read: "Between 2000-2007 in Germany, the National Socialist group NSU killed nine people with an immigrant background and a police officer and carried out several bombings. The only motive for the attacks was the non-German origin of the victims."