At the End of the Night

Robert Tanner lives a serene life. He is a quiet, friendly man. He is good to the customers in the small store he manages, polite to his neighbors and a considerate husband and father. But perhaps a bit tense a times. When he is unable to pay his debts, he begins to lose grip of things.
The tragedy takes place on a Sunday night, when he kills his wife and son. He commits the crime calmly and methodically, as if this insane deed could put everything in order.

Comment:
Robert Tanner is a man who wants to please everybody. Kind and friendly, concerned about everyone, hs family above all. Maybe he is a bit easily irritated, especially at home. That is the calm beginning. But after that all hell breaks loose.
At the End of the Night is a journey into madness, a description of the mechanisms of psychosis. But Robert Tanner is not any old psycho. Not the usual violent film cliché of insanity. His confusion increases, but at the same time he rationalizes his actions to himself so that what he does seems to be the only right thing to do.
When he is unable to pay his debts, he steals money from his job. Not ery smart, since it will soon to be discovered and then he will be fired. But it isn't his fault - is it? He has just borrowed too much money from the wrong people in order to make his family happy. It is ''their'' faul, and ultimately the family's fault. It is for the sake of his family that he has gotten himself into this situation.
Shamde and disgrace, a lost reputation, at work and - at home. His wife and son will lose what little respect they have for him...
What is the most logical thing to do then? In Robert Tanner's distorted world, it is to get rid of the worst thing - the looks of accusation from his family. So he kills them. And he does this in one of the least bloody murder scenes I have ever seen. But it is none the less horrid, especially when the small hand of the child desperately tries to stop his father.
That is self-sufficient egoism driven to its extreme. To Robert Tanner, the family doesn't exist as anything but an idea about how it is supposed to be.
When the night is finally over, he thinks he will obtain redress - but there is no return for the person who has gone into the great darkness.
In reality things are not put right as if by a stroke of magic. The insane don't get well, the poor don't get rich - this only happens in the world of the movies. At the End of the Night shows what could have happened in real life. Waking up to the day after with anguish and a hangover; or like today, the decade following the happy days of consumption in the boom.
Lotta Kempe

Orig. titel
Am Ende der Nacht: Medverkande
Peter von Strombech, Jessica Früh: Producent
Susanne Rüdlinger: Manus
Martin Witz: Foto
Ciro Cappellari: Musik
Thomas Bächil: Talat språk
German