In the city below there’s a cinema where René works as a projectionist. He’s not good-looking, more of a striver. René lives by himself. Maybe that’s a good thing. René is always taking pictures, of everything and putting them in an album along with the date. Sometimes he gets drunk. And there’s Theo the farmer, who lives with his wife and three children. They don’t have much, only a lot of hard work. Maybe they won’t be able to continue like this much longer. Not this time. It’s winter.
SEEING, SEEING EACH OTHER AGAIN
Who can know, after the event, what really happened that morning. These are only things that are certain – a stolen Alfa Romeo sunken in the snow, a sick horse shot dead, a little girl in a coma. The hunt is now on. Marco is looking for the car thief. Theo is after the swine who made his car go into a skid, leading to the crash that severely injured his daughter. And then just walked off leaving Theo unconscious in his overturned vehicle.
Both Marco and Theo are in fact looking for René, but they can’t know that since they’ve never seen him. And René doesn’t know either, because he can’t remember anything. At the same time, everyone feels closer to life than to disaster this morning. Back from Christmas celebrations with parents, back at home and very relieved. Laura went to bed immediately, Rebecca too – with Marco. René got drunk straight away with his friend Otto.
Laura has to assist the head surgeon. A child has been seriously injured in a car accident. The father, sitting aghast in front of the door, is murmuring something about a second car, of which no trace can be found anywhere. René deliberately didn’t use his car because he was still drunk, but then noticed the Alfa in front of a mountain villa with the keys still in the ignition. A couple was making love inside. René took a photo… and got in the car. You can’t have everything … but maybe you can have something at least. Theo was also up at the crack of dawn. Perhaps things would have turned out differently if René hadn’t driven up the mountains so damn fast, if Theo hadn’t become distracted, if the road hadn’t been so slippery, if Theo had seen the Alfa earlier.
SEARCHING, WAITING
All Theo can remember is a strange, winding line. Only much later will he realize that it was a scar, a scar on the back of the head of the man in the Alfa – who just drove off after the accident. Although René would have remained at the scene had he had the slightest understanding of what had happened. But René has problems with his head. The only thing he can remember from that morning is the blurry photo he took of the couple he saw through the window. In the evening René is witness to a minor calamity, Laura in an amateur performance of ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’, directed by Otto. The premiere is a disaster, but the hall is empty anyway, as are most of the tables at the party afterwards. Laura and René find themselves sitting together alone at a table and are forced to converse. After they have ascertained to their mutual satisfaction that neither is terribly interested in the other, they begin to meet more often. At the cinema, at the pub and also at Laura’s place, where Marco would be only too happy to move in if Rebecca would but allow it.
However, Rebecca is as usual taking her own sweet time deciding on this, as she does with everything and everyone and it infuriates Marco. At these times, sex is the only thing that serves to remind them of their feelings for one another and how physically attracted they are to each other. At the same time, not far away, Theo lies sleepless next to his wife. He is worried about the farm, which is no longer viable, and desperately afraid for the life of his daughter. Theo plots revenge against the unknown hit-and-run driver as the strange, snake-like marking – a bit like a hieroglyphic – dances back and forth in his mind’s eye.
FORGETTING, RECOGNIZING
A scar. Now Theo finally realizes what’s going on. It’s a scar that he saw on the back of that person’s head. But no one will believe him, and the Alfa still lies buried under the snow. René, the man with the scar, is still blundering through life without any kind of recall of that morning. Although in the meantime he’s actually met the owner of the car – Marco, who is in fact now living with Rebecca and Laura. No one knows that, far away in his hometown, he has another lover whom he occasionally phones from the office. And that he is also planning to seduce Nina, his skiing student.
Suddenly, all over the city, handwritten posters appear. “Have you seen this scar?” But they disappear as quickly as they are put up. When René comes across the Alfa’s papers while looking for cigarettes in Marco’s room at the villa, things start to become clearer – but it’s still not enough. He vaguely remembers stealing Marco’s car. He rushes out of the villa although he is supposed to be waiting there for Laura. After all it’s New Year’s Eve. Left alone together Rebecca argues with Marco, who accuses her of being keen on René.
FINDING, LOSING
Rebecca and Marco begin to fight more and more, increasingly lost for words. By contrast, in the very next room Laura and René are speculating on what must not be allowed to happen between them, namely having children, marriage, moving in together. They wouldn’t be able to stick to such commitments for very long. After he not only stands her up but also completely forgets about her, René has to explain the situation to Laura. He constantly has memory drop-outs due to an old injury. Hence the scar on the back of his head. That’s why René photographs everything he sees and everything that happens to him. “Well, I have to keep a record of it if my brain won’t do it, don’t I?” However, he remembers that he loves Laura. That will just have to do. Theo loses his farm and the contents are taken away. Theo is forced to watch on in stunned silence, just as he can only stand by helplessly, watching his daughter die. He can’t even count on his wife anymore. She’s the one who’s been taking his posters down. She is ashamed of the way everybody is laughing at him behind his back. But spring finally brings the thaw, and one day Theo discovers a weather-beaten Alfa in the ravine. This is the proof of the man with the scar, in whose existence nobody believed.
Just like the gradually melting snow, so the days crawl past, in which Marco sleeps with Nina and fights for Rebecca’s love. Laura is forced to realize that she is no longer on top of things. Neither is Rebecca, who clearly prefers René to Marco. And nor does Theo, who finally and irrevocably loses his daughter.
DYING, SLEEPING
Marco takes the risk of being with Nina and by doing that loses Rebecca. His is a losing game. Rebecca can no longer stand Marco, nor herself for that matter. All that is left to her is retreat. Laura has to change the way she lives. Fate forces her hand into something that might also be called happiness.
René will make a decision, one which he doesn’t know is right or not. He can only try as best he can not to do anything wrong. Theo will continue to search for the man with the scar. He vows to seek him out and hound him to death. But what he is really searching for is his own peace of mind, which he will indeed find, quite unexpectedly. And life goes on, as it must.
