Christoph Hochhäusler’s contribution to the trilogy is the one in which the criminal’s escape and the manhunt it engenders comes to the fore. The film cuts back and forth between Molesch’s desperate flight and the sleuthing of the police detective who had previously fingered him for murder. As each man tries to outwit the other, we begin to see the ways in which their lives as parent (the detective) and child (the murderer) contribute to their present situations. The film exhibits Hochhäusler’s habitual fascination for risky and ambiguous behavior, while his camera leads its own detailed investigation, caressingly exploring space and surfaces with elegantly smooth movements. Under the gaze of this camera, the world becomes a set of opaque signs in which the search for answers begets only further questions, and the narratives used to sort these signs assign roles to the players involved that do not explain their actions but determine them. – DP