Puzzling in black and white

Rating: 9/10 (19 August 2010)

It is about the persons in a German village around the year 1910 to 1914. It is in black white and has all that flair of the time. I think I have hardly ever seen something like that before in such meticulous detail. The action and reaction of people feels so real, you can hear them breathing and the mimics are simply superb acting at times.
Even if you do not get your head into the morals of these people, you get involved such that it feels so immediate and palpable as if you were there yourself as an invisible spectator. I could even imagine how it smells in these places since I have been to similar ones before.
The story is puzzling and has to do with hidden violence, abuse, acts of revenge, morality and in general about how these people interact and which secrets they hide. The movie does not disclose the villager's secrets thereby leaving you and the accompanying narrator left with possible but not confirmed speculations about what really happened in that village just before the First World War.
Highly recommendable for German speakers.