Now playing at the Rotterdam International Film Festival, We Are Next of Kin from director Hans-Christian Schmid shows the events of a kidnapping, but not from the perspective of the abducted wealthy family patriarch. Instead we see the daily lives of his son and wife, and the police who come to live in their home to try and ensure his safe return. Their lawyer comes to stay with them also to act as intermediary and a family friend arrives to help young Johann (Claude Heinrich) deal with and comprehend what’s happening.
The movie is a slow burn. Some of the director’s choices seemed to consciously lower the level of tension, so much so that I began to wonder if he was adhering to the actual events of a true story. I found out afterwards that it is a true story: Jan Philipp Reemtsma, a literary scholar and the multi-millionaire heir of a tobacco company, was kidnapped in 1996 for a ransom of $20 million.
Based on a memoir of the event written by the real life Johann, the film shows the day to day details of the family’s life invaded by police, and the mundane errors of bungled ransom drop-offs committed by those same police. The cops who work closest with the family are kind enough, but powerless to the ineffectual bureaucracy commanding 2000 “elite” officers. Frustratingly and true to life, the police in the end are more concerned with maintaining their public image as heroes.
Adina Vetter plays Ann Kathrin Scheerer, Johann’s mother and Jan Philipp’s wife. She does well in capturing the character’s multi-faceted pressures: caring for Johann and protecting him from the harsh realities of his father’s kidnapping as well as dealing with her own fear while advocating against the police for the best handling of the case.
The best approach to an actual kidnapping, and many people’s natural reactions to such frightening, incomprehensible events, may be to keep as calm as possible. The entire cast gives a realistic subdued performance. Justus von Dohnányi as the family’s lawyer and intermediary between the police and the kidnappers, becomes memorable as he’s allowed to show the most emotion. He’s frustrated with the police’s methods and defensive when he’s criticised for his own minor errors in the attempts at dropping off the $20 million.
Johann had a fight with his father right before the kidnapping over preparing for a Latin exam. His father gave him a copy of The Aeneid to read over Easter, an extra amount of work Johann didn’t want. This fight is a source of great guilt for Johann. Books are Jan Philipp’s life and he uses them to communicate in the letters he’s permitted to write from wherever the kidnappers are holding him. He references Tom Sawyer and a trip around the world to his son in the letters. It’s a nice concrete source of emotion to have, especially when all are trying so hard to stay strong for each other and not show any at all.
The letters are another potential source of suspense dangled in front of the viewer.
Are Jan Philipp’s literary references coded clues to where he’s being held? Nope. Very quickly we’re told they’re just books father and son read together. Every thread of intrigue gets snipped before it can cause an unravelling.
It’s the film’s clear choice to be like this. I personally wouldn’t have minded seeing the kidnapper’s perspective added to the mix, what they wanted, how they were eventually captured, what they did with all the money. I knew nothing about the case before watching the movie. From reading about it afterwards, it seems like most of the German audience would be familiar with it. I don’t know how much that would affect your enjoyment of the filmmaker’s approach to the subject. I’ll admit that at the beginning I was confused as to Johann’s relationship to his father. The family has two entire houses, one right behind the other. Jan Phillip gets kidnapped in the other house. Johann’s mother tells him when he wakes up that “Jan Phillip has been kidnapped” not “your father”. Johann also calls him “Jan Phillip” at times when referring to him in the third person. All this to say that for a second I was like “was the kidnapped guy his tutor?”
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