The Man Outside

THE MAN OUTSIDE - adapted from Wolfgang Borcherts Drama with the same name.

Short:
Soldier Beckmann's return home from duty turns into an odyssey back to nowhere. His fiancée has another man and he can't sleep because of what he experienced in the war. He jumps into the river. But the river and an inner voice doe not begrudge Beckmann his death. Trapped in the ruins of his life, he searches for meaning and slowly loses his mind in the process.

Long:
"A man comes to Germany. He has been away for a long time, the man. Very long. Maybe too long. And he comes back very different from when he left.“
Sergeant Beckmann is one of those "who come home and yet don't come home because there's no home for them anymore."
With a duffel bag over his shoulder, Beckmann runs along a harbor area and reaches the backyard of an abandoned house. He drops the sack and opens a door with a jerk.
God and Death watch what is happening and discuss the reasons why so many take their own lives in these times. Beckmann reappears in the cellar of a woman. She calls herself "The River," smiles at his suicide and spits him out again. "Live first! Let yourself be kicked. Kick back." Beckmann begins his Odysee through the decaying house back to the nothing. He appears in an empty room, startled by the sound of a baby crying. He meets his life-affirming alter ego, who calls himself "The Other.“ Just a voice in his head. He tells this voice how he ended up in the river. Beckmann wakes up in a bathtub. A girl finds him there and takes him to her place. She gives him food and the clothes of her missing husband. The next morning, Beckmann is lying in bed next to the girl, her husband, a war buddy of Beckmann's, is standing in the doorway. He accuses him. Beckmann realizes the parallels to his own homecoming. He, too, found his wife in bed with another man and jumped into the river. "I never want to be Beckmann again!" The Other tries to give Beckmann a new hope and sends him to The Major, his former superior. To him he is to return the responsibility for what is depriving him of sleep. The responsibility for the fallen soldiers that Beckmann led. Beckmann tells the major about a recurring nightmare. This triggers a psychotic episode in him. In a crevice in the wall of the house, he relives the traumatic experiences of his deployment. This amuses The Major. He advises him to make a stage performance out of it. "You should perform somewhere with this act. You should garnish the whole thing with music and effects." In his desperation, which turns into anger, he takes up the suggestion.
Beckmann approaches The Curator and asks for a chance as an artist. "What did you bring to show me?" The Curator asks. Beckmann remembers the song that the river sang and recites it to the curator. But The Curator finds the performance too authentic. "You'll scare the audience away with that." The Other tries to calm Beckmann's frustration and sends him home to his parents. "Home at last." A woman who is a stranger to him now lives in his parents' apartment. She tells him about their suicide. "The old Beckmanns didn't want to anymore. Maybe they just didn't feel like it anymore." While arguing with The Other about the insensitivity of people, Beckmann runs through the house and ultimately falls asleep exhausted in the attic. "Yes I'm asleep. Finally."
Beckmann meets God in a dream and accuses him of taking his child. God, however, wails because no one listens to him anymore. Beckmann follows The Death through the house. "Don't close the door on me!"
The Other tries one last time to convince Beckmann of the goodness of mankind. But Beckmann loads his gun. In the attic of the house he shoots those who he feels betrayed by. Beckmann washes himself and puts away his equipment. He falls asleep and once again meets his war companion in the wall crevice. He asks him not to forget him. "If your murderer doesn't forget you, you can at least die in peace."
Left all alone, Beckmann wanders through the house, desperately searching for something or someone who can give him an answer. "Where are you yes-man? Where are you who begrudge me my death? Where are you all? Doesn't anybody answer?"
Again he meets the dead war companion who wants to take him through the crevice. "We are left with the span between nothing and eternity. Aren't you coming?" Beckmann seems to follow him.
But he awakens in another room of the house to the crying of a child. Beckmann follows the sound and finds the child in an empty room. This encounter seems to change Beckmann. For the first time we see him smile. He walks out of the room, leaving the child behind. The baby turns around, looking directly into the camera, and Beckmann is flushed out of the house the same way he entered it. During the end titles, we see Beckmann dancing with himself on the dam of the river.