ANTIBODIES A vicious serial killer of children has been apprehended in Berlin, and at first that’s great news for Michael Martens (Wotan Wilke Möhring), a rural farmer and constable haunted by the unsolved murder of a local girl. Exultation turns to confusion, however, when the killer, Engel (André Hennicke), declares that he didn’t murder the girl but witnessed who did, thereby pulling Michael into a game of psychological cat-and-mouse. There are absurd but gripping plot twists aplenty in this German-language film from writer-director Christian Alvart, but its unexpected depth comes from Möhring’s moving portrait of a deeply religious, upright man — his troubled 13-year-old son might call him harsh and unloving — who’s both excited and dismayed by what he discovers about himself in the big city. There’s no question that Alvart’s story lifts from The Silence of the Lambs (as if in acknowledgment, Engel makes a Hannibal Lecter joke), and it’s true too that the filmmaker resorts to movie clichés when depicting Michael’s flirtation with his darker instincts. (Michael cheats on his wife with a Berlin woman and has anal sex with her — a sign of devilish depravity, apparently, for filmmakers worldwide.) The biblical quotes at the fade-out fall flat, and yet Antibodies is fairly riveting, thanks to Alvart’s command of craft and tone. He’s a director to watch. Cinephiles, take note: In the opening police raid, look for the face of the always-interesting American actor Norman Reedus, playing a cop who finds the final murdered child. Underused in Hollywood, Reedus is reportedly set to star in... More >>>