Winter Sleepers

The location is a ski village. The daughter of a peasant farmer (Josef Biebichler) is critically injured in a road accident, caused by avoiding a stolen car, driven by Rene (Ulrich Matthes), the projectionist at the local cinema.

The stolen car belongs to Marco (Heino Ferch), a ski instructor, who is screwing Rebecca (Floriane Daniel) who is sharing a house with Laura (Marie-Lou Sellem), the nurse caring for the girl-in-a-coma and quite soon going out with Rene who suffers short-term memory loss; which means he can't remember what happened yesterday, like the crash.

Director Tom Tykwer's technique is so gripping, it takes time to realise how shallow these people are. Once you do, you notice other things, such as Rebecca's obsession with red and Marco's incompetence on the slopes. The characters become servants of the plot and the plot contorts itself into implausable shapes to accommodate them.

It is not a thriller, really. It is a study in coincidence. Also, ski instructors who don't know the geography of their mountain deserve what's coming to them.