Under the Pear Tree

Story

To mark the 200th anniversary of Fontane’s birth, the film revisits his famous novella as a psychological study of a village community. Abel and Ursel Hradschek (Fritz Karl and Julia Koschitz) have a country hotel in Oderbruch in the state of Brandenburg. Business is bad, the hotel has debts and the Hradscheks are living beyond their means. The pressure increases when a creditor announces that he is no longer willing to wait for his money and will come and visit them. When Hradschek discovers the skeleton of a World War II soldier under a pear tree, he hatches a perfidious plan. With the help of his wife, he arranges the “perfect murder” of his creditor. And indeed, no-one seems to suspect anything, not even the village policeman (Devid Striesow), who fancies Ursel. Then she starts having terrible nightmares. And Abel has underestimated the inquisitiveness of their neighbour Jeschke (Katharina Thalbach).

Director

ULI EDEL (*1947) studied at the HFF in Munich and had a major hit with his debut film Christiane F. Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo (1981). He then made more films for TV and cinema, including Last Exit to Brooklyn (1989), Julius Caesar (2002), The Baader-Meinhof Complex (2008) and the mini-series Das Adlon. Eine Familiensaga (2013).

Trailer