Crime · Thriller
German (Es geschah am hellichten Tag)
1958 · Directed by Ladislao Vajda · 100 min
In a quiet Swiss landscape, a detective on the point of leaving the force is drawn into the investigation of a child's murder. Part procedural, part character study, the film is calm on the surface and unsettling underneath.
Why it matters in cinema history
One of the strongest German-language crime films of the 1950s, and the screen source of a story later remade in Hollywood and echoed in many films about investigators who cannot let go.
Watch with intention
Watch it as a study of certainty: how a person decides what is true, and what that conviction costs.
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