Witness
The film starts off with a funeral. My German is not that good but I infer it is Rachel's husband, Jacob, father of Samuel, who has died.
She is traveling I think to see a relative who is expecting a baby or has recently had a baby and her connecting train is delayed, leaving her and her young son, Samuel, stranded for a few hours in a train station in the big city. For them, it's a very alien world.
When her young son goes to the restroom, he witnesses a murder. The man murdered was a cop. The two murderers were also cops, corrupt cops, and Harrison Ford's character, John Book, learns how deep the corruption goes when someone makes an attempt on his life after he tells a higher up.
Seriously wounded and bleeding, he calls his partner and asks him to lose the paperwork so there is no address on record for the boy and his mother, and he drives them home. He intends to leave but crashes his car before he can get off her farmstead and the family carries him into the house and hides the vehicle in the barn.
She begs her father and another man to NOT report this to the police or take him to a hospital because if they do, there will be a police report and then the corrupt cops who shot John Book will find her son, Samuel. They tend to him with homemade poultice and teas and he recovers.
Of course, there is romantic tension between John Book and Rachel. They are in unusually close contact in that he is staying in her home and he is protecting her and her son from murderers. It's pretty natural in a situation like that for feelings to run high.
And there is talk among the Amish about the two and it's not nice, though neither Rachel nor John have done anything wrong. He is literally just doing his job under unusually difficult circumstances and making no excuses like "Oh, well, I can't be one of the good guys THIS TIME because the bad guys are making it too hard to be a good guy."
The people talking trash about the two frame the situation in a manner that is completely out of touch with reality, as if she invited him to her place or he is visiting voluntarily. The reality is he drove her and her son home to protect them and intended to leave and was not travel worthy and she feels fond of him because he is being good to her in the face of extreme ugliness happening in her life.
He is protecting her and her child from evil forces and from death itself. There is a scene where she bathes herself and he kind of walks in on her and she seems inclined to let him have her and he decides to walk away instead. The next day, he tells her "If we had made love last night, I would have to stay. Or you would have to go."
The title potentially has more than one meaning.
At one point, Rachel's father, Eli, speaks passionately about pacifism and towards the end of the film he gestures for Samuel to ring the bell on their farm which will call the neighbors. When the neighbors show up, it's too many people for the one remaining living corrupt cop to kill them all, much less kill them all and make up some plausible cover story about why he needed to kill a bunch of peaceniks in self defense.
The violence stops because there are too many witnesses. Simply showing up and being another pair of eyes attached to a mouth which can speak of what they saw is a powerful antidote to an evil thing that has been quietly living in the dark for many years.
She is traveling I think to see a relative who is expecting a baby or has recently had a baby and her connecting train is delayed, leaving her and her young son, Samuel, stranded for a few hours in a train station in the big city. For them, it's a very alien world.
When her young son goes to the restroom, he witnesses a murder. The man murdered was a cop. The two murderers were also cops, corrupt cops, and Harrison Ford's character, John Book, learns how deep the corruption goes when someone makes an attempt on his life after he tells a higher up.
Seriously wounded and bleeding, he calls his partner and asks him to lose the paperwork so there is no address on record for the boy and his mother, and he drives them home. He intends to leave but crashes his car before he can get off her farmstead and the family carries him into the house and hides the vehicle in the barn.
She begs her father and another man to NOT report this to the police or take him to a hospital because if they do, there will be a police report and then the corrupt cops who shot John Book will find her son, Samuel. They tend to him with homemade poultice and teas and he recovers.
Of course, there is romantic tension between John Book and Rachel. They are in unusually close contact in that he is staying in her home and he is protecting her and her son from murderers. It's pretty natural in a situation like that for feelings to run high.
And there is talk among the Amish about the two and it's not nice, though neither Rachel nor John have done anything wrong. He is literally just doing his job under unusually difficult circumstances and making no excuses like "Oh, well, I can't be one of the good guys THIS TIME because the bad guys are making it too hard to be a good guy."
The people talking trash about the two frame the situation in a manner that is completely out of touch with reality, as if she invited him to her place or he is visiting voluntarily. The reality is he drove her and her son home to protect them and intended to leave and was not travel worthy and she feels fond of him because he is being good to her in the face of extreme ugliness happening in her life.
He is protecting her and her child from evil forces and from death itself. There is a scene where she bathes herself and he kind of walks in on her and she seems inclined to let him have her and he decides to walk away instead. The next day, he tells her "If we had made love last night, I would have to stay. Or you would have to go."
The title potentially has more than one meaning.
At one point, Rachel's father, Eli, speaks passionately about pacifism and towards the end of the film he gestures for Samuel to ring the bell on their farm which will call the neighbors. When the neighbors show up, it's too many people for the one remaining living corrupt cop to kill them all, much less kill them all and make up some plausible cover story about why he needed to kill a bunch of peaceniks in self defense.
The violence stops because there are too many witnesses. Simply showing up and being another pair of eyes attached to a mouth which can speak of what they saw is a powerful antidote to an evil thing that has been quietly living in the dark for many years.