Johann Scheerer is 13 when his father is kidnapped. One morning the father is gone and in the garden there is a letter weighed down with a hand grenade. “Johann, I have to tell you something,” his mother wakes him. “We now have to face an adventure together. Jan Philipp has been kidnapped.”
“Before, I didn’t know what fear was,” says Johann (Claude Heinrich) in the film by Hans-Christian Schmid. “We’re probably the relatives then” tells the story of the Reemtsma kidnapping from his son’s point of view, it begins like a true crime spectacle. Then Johann and his mother are taken away in a car, it’s night, the camera seems rushed. The boy pulls the hood of his sweatshirt over his head to protect himself from the reporters’ flashbulbs. Fortunately, a “reporter of Satan” story does not follow. And also no crime, no thriller or true crime format, although all that would have been expected to guarantee audience interest. Hans-Christian Schmid, who was most recently celebrated for the TV series “Das Verblenden” (2017) and has already sensitively directed films based on real events, such as “Requiem”, “Crazy” and “23”, instead traces the drama of the family. It is a deeply personal story that at the same time reflects the feeling of our present: that of a violent break, a turning point in time. It will never be the way it was again.
Everything is wired, the phone is bugged, it’s as grotesque as it is oppressive
In March 1996, the Hamburg philologist, social researcher and multi-millionaire Jan Philipp Reemtsma was abducted. He is held captive for 33 days, chained in a basement, the family received a Polaroid. The kidnappers first demanded a ransom of 20, then 30 million marks, it was one of the most spectacular crimes in the Federal Republic. Reemtsma wrote a book about it himself, “Im Keller”, 1997. With a gap of more than 20 years, his son Johann Scheerer described the events of 2018 from the perspective of the family in “We are then probably the relatives. The story of a kidnapping”. described.
The film tells of the kidnapping in a long flashback, the end is already known. First you see a bit of everyday family life, Johann at school and with his band, his biggest concern is a Latin exam. A conversation between him and his father Jan Philipp (Philipp Hauß) about that Latin exam already shows how precisely Hans-Christian Schmid and his screenwriter Michael Gutmann dissect their characters and the dynamics in the wealthy, educated middle-class family. The philologist Reemtsma urges his son to be fascinated by the ancient Romans, and Virgil’s “Aeneid” becomes compulsory reading (“until Easter!”). His intellectual rigor and detachment have an oppressive effect, like the house in which he works: not far from the family home, he has his own father’s house full of books, which, as the real Johann Scheerer described it in his book, he always considered rivals for his father’s attention and love.
Then the father disappeared, kidnapped when the pubescent son urgently needed him – as a sparring partner, to relieve him. “We are then probably the relatives” is also a coming-of-age story: growing up the hard way. Johann throws the “Aeneid” in the garbage, only to dig in the bin later in despair when he thinks his father is dead.
There is nothing to be seen of the crime itself in the film, everything is echoes and waiting. The shock spreads like the waves that form when you throw a stone into the water, for example when Ann Kathrin Scheerer sees her husband’s Polaroid. Adina Vetter plays her as a woman of the most painful discipline who almost falls silent and petrifies trying not to give in to her feelings. What is not said, not by her and not by her son, is that the perpetrators will probably kill the only witness. Once Johann is watching a film, the science fiction classic “Silent Running”. The astronaut in it is perhaps the loneliest man in space.
The captivity of the relatives at home, whose home becomes the operations center, corresponds to the kidnapped person’s basement. Two police officers move in, who introduce themselves as “relatives carers” with code names, everything is wired up, the phone is bugged, it’s as grotesque as it is oppressive. The mother also brought the lawyer friend Johann Schwenn (Justus von Dohnányi) into the house and a family friend (Hans Löw), who took care of Johann. Everyone is waiting for news from the kidnappers. The film succeeds in creating precise psychograms, for example when the arrogant lawyer Schwenn makes a blunder on the phone with the kidnappers and finally collapses under the pressure.
Once you’ve been thrown out of your world, it’s not easy to find your way back
Especially Claude Heinrich as Johann is great. At the age of 16, he already had a lot of acting experience, in “Lindenberg”, “8 Days” or “A Pure Place”, and revealed a whole package of contradictory feelings: childish light-heartedness (police work is also exciting), pubertal stubbornness , speechless terror – and the furious grief for a father who, as he supposedly is dead, becomes even more of a father.
However, the film deviates from its template, which consistently describes the events from the point of view of the 13-year-old. In the film, the perspective isn’t so clear, you can also see processes that the boy didn’t witness. This makes the film look more conventional than it is. In fact, “We are then probably the relatives” is completely unsentimental, almost brutally sober. Entertainment cinema likes to find the positive in tragedies, but Hans-Christian Schmid denies the perpetrators and the crime any meaning. When father, mother and son end up in one bed together, it’s not a happy ending. Johann’s gaze goes out of the picture into the camera: once you’ve been thrown out of your world, it’s not so easy to find your way back.
We are then probably the relatives, D 2022 – director: Hans-Christian Schmid. Book: Michael Gutmann, H.-Ch. Smith. Camera: Julian Krubasik. Editing: Hansjörg Weissbrich. Music: The Notwist. With: Claude Heinrich, Adina Vetter, Justus von Dohnányi, Hans Löw, Yorck Dippe, Enno Trebs, Fabian Hinrichs, Philipp Hauß. Pandora, 118 minutes. Theatrical release November 3, 2022.