THE DAY OF MIKKEL'S DISAPPEARANCE
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can...
SCHOOL ID - MADS NIELSEN
Tronte!
I...
It's me, Peter.
I...
There's something here you should see.
It's to do with your son.
No, not Ulrich.
Mads.
How...
That's impossible.
He was just there all of a sudden.
Mads.
Someone's coming.
Tronte.
Claudia?
Peter.
There's a lot I have to explain.
But first we need to take Mads to the place where he is to be found.
We don't have much time left.
ALPHA AND OMEGA
I'm sorry.
I really fucked up.
Since Mikkel disappeared...
I don't recognize myself anymore.
It doesn't matter, okay?
Everything's okay.
You know how he is.
He usually comes back after a few hours.
He's never been gone this long.
Was my colleague Ulrich Nielsen here again?
No. Not that I'm aware of, anyway.
Only on Saturday, when he lashed out at Mr. Doppler.
As if your father-in-law had something to do with the case.
Did you know?
Did I know what?
The boy from the future.
You knew.
This is for you.
DO NOT OPEN BEFORE NOVEMBER 4, 10:13 P.M.
-That's impossible. -What?
I burned it.
How long have you known?
I've always known, really.
When your father came to me,
he was a disturbed little boy.
I just thought he had an overactive imagination.
That something bad must have happened to him, something he couldn't bear.
He told me...
he came from the future.
I didn't believe him.
If you knew...
why didn't you stop it?
I didn't know that he would take his own life.
But you could have saved Mikkel!
Now I have another grandma and she's the principal of my school!
Her husband, who's fucking my mom, is looking for his son, who's my father!
A few days ago I kissed my aunt.
And the crazy thing is...
there's nothing wrong with any of them.
They're okay.
I'm what's wrong.
I think things...
no matter how abnormal
or strange they seem to us,
happen for a reason.
Who are we to play God?
What's past is past.
But you...
live in the here and now.
Who knows what the future will bring.
I just want everything to go back to normal.
As a kid, all that Houdini dreamed of was becoming a magician.
Do you have the same dream?
Yes.
But the magic I want to do is impossible.
Which is what?
I just want to finally wake up.
Have you heard of Master Zhuang's paradox?
I dreamt I was a butterfly.
Now I've woken up and no longer know if I'm a person
who dreamed he's a butterfly,
or if I'm a butterfly who's dreaming
it's a person.
What are you?
A person or a butterfly?
Maybe I'm both.
My name is Egon Tiedemann.
Maybe we can just start with you telling me your name.
Tiedemann?
Egon, yes...
Of course.
-Are you a Satanist? -A Satanist?
No, I'm a cop.
A cop?
It's a song from the 80s.
I can tell you now, you won't like it.
Look into the camera.
Why did you kill the children?
I didn't kill the children. I tried to save them.
What did you do to Helge?
He's still alive.
He must be. Or the children wouldn't be dead.
Where is Helge now?
-Where is he? -I can change it all.
I can change everything that's going to happen, but you have to let me go.
-Look into the camera. -Please!
Look into the camera!
You know what we do with child murderers here?
You stupid asshole.
You're just as small-minded as everyone else in this shitty town.
Let me go!
Are you already drinking, or will you start after your wife leaves you,
and you realize how pathetic and pitiful you are?
Let me go! Let me go!
Leave me! Let me out!
I need to get to my son. I have to find my son!
I waited for you.
On Thursday.
-Yes, fuck... -What do you mean "fuck"?
I didn't tell anyone you were in the nuthouse.
I lied for you.
France, baguettes...
Blah, blah, blah...
Turns out you lie pretty well yourself.
You don't even need me.
Martha told me everything.
-It just happened. I really didn't... -What didn't you want?
To blow me off?
To lie to me?
To make out with my girlfriend?
You're a sick piece of shit!
Just like your dad.
What are you doing?
Have you lost it?
Don't ever come back here!
Get the hell out of here!
You repaired it.
That one's yours.
And this one's mine.
I built it many years ago.
It's the same device,
but in a different condition.
You see.
It's as if
one could look at the beginning and end of something at the same time.
Wait a moment.
This thing here
it sends a kind of signal.
An electromagnetic impulse.
As if it were trying to communicate with something.
And look at this.
This part has never moved.
It was included in the blueprint, but I never knew what it was for.
This thing communicates with the device.
It's not just the past that influences the future.
The future also influences the past.
You see.
If you hadn't shown me what the device looks like in the future,
I wouldn't have been able to build it.
A paradox.
These openings
didn't exist either.
I have no idea what their purpose is.
What's that?
Cs-137.
A radioactive isotope of Cesium.
The device generates a Higgs field.
It increases the mass of the Cesium,
An electromagnetic impulse causes it
to implode into a black hole.
The same thing must have happened during the nuclear power plant incident.
Why did you decide to help me after all?
Why?
That's a big word.
Why do we decide for one thing and against another?
But does it matter whether the decision is based upon
the consequence of a series of causal links?
Or whether it stems from an undefined feeling inside me?
That perhaps everything in my life boils down to this one moment.
That I'm part of a puzzle.
One that I can neither understand
nor influence.
Will you tell me...
what the future's like?
I'm hoping that by tomorrow, it'll already be different from today.
Yes?
Your father was kidnapped as a kid, right?
Do you remember when exactly?
I...
Can we talk? I...
-I have to tell you something... -When exactly? '53? '54?
Fall of '53.
'53.
Exactly 66 years ago.
Two times 33.
-It's all connected. -Listen, Charlotte, I...
I have to talk to you.
Later, okay? I've got to go.
Can I help you?
Were you looking for me?
You have to stop.
What do I have to stop?
He's using you.
All of his promises are lies.
I think you're mistaking me for someone else.
I've said that before.
Everything Noah says
is a lie.
He's not the chosen one.
You're not the chosen one.
He doesn't want to save the world from evil.
He is evil.
Today is the day.
The beginning and the end.
Don't make the same mistakes I made.
You have to stop.
You have to stop!
I have to stop.
What happened to you?
I got into a fight.
What?
With whom?
It doesn't matter.
What do you mean, it doesn't matter?
Everything will be fine.
I left something at school.
Don't worry. Everything will be fine, Mom.
Charlotte asked me about the cabin.
And Helge.
About what happened in '53.
A few more hours, and it'll be over.
Mads will live.
Do you believe her?
Everything she said would happen has happened in the last eight days.
Just as it's written here.
Then why have half of the pages been torn out?
What happens after today?
After today...
everything will be new.
But if there is no God,
then why do we believe in a lie?
Because we prefer any lie to the pain.
Years ago, I was still a little boy.
A stranger came to us.
He looked as if he'd been in the war.
Didn't talk much.
There was this sadness in his eyes.
The kind you sometimes see in those who want to die,
but life won't let them.
He took a room in our house.
The bedroom right next to mine.
And...
sometimes I heard him talk in his sleep.
Confused words.
But one night, he was suddenly very clear.
He stood in the hallway,
his eyes wide open, and said...
"Nothing is in vain.
Not a single breath.
Not a single step, not a single word.
Not pain.
An eternal miracle of the One."
I didn't understand any of his words.
Only years later, when I felt the pain,
did I understand what he meant.
That none of the horrible things that befall us should be in vain.
That's my son!
That they make us what we are.
That they give us our strength.
Your pain made you who you are, Helge.
But it no longer has power over you.
Who is next?
Jonas Kahnwald.
He'll be fine. Don't worry.
You can always come and visit him.
I'm taking you to your new home.
There are lots of other children there.
-Can you hear me? -Come.
Come.
You know, I've made a decision. I want to adopt him.
And to take provisional custody of him during the adoption procedure...
I'm afraid it's not so easy.
I have references. I own a home.
-I... -It's a very complicated process.
I know.
It may seem somewhat rash.
But it isn't.
-I can't just decide here... -The boy likes me.
He trusts me.
I'm the only person he lets close to him, and...
And I...
I like him, too.
What day is it today?
-The 12th. -What year?
'86.
Are you from here?
What are you doing here?
Bringing someone back from the dead.
How does that work?
It's very hard to explain.
Can you bring these back?
No, you have to find them when they're younger.
But then they're not dead yet.
That doesn't change the fact that they will die.
You're crazy.
Maybe.
"Helge Doppler. Nine years old.
Went missing on November 10, 1953.
The kidnapping is being linked to an unknown person."
Page five.
IS THIS MAN A CHILD MURDERER?
Let me go. Please!
Please, let me go.
Where is Helge?
You don't want to talk?
I'll teach you how to talk.
Who are you?
-There's no need to be afraid. -Hey!
Hey! What's this supposed to be? What is this?
Why did you lock me in here?
It wasn't me.
It was Noah.
Who's Noah?
Where am I? What is this?
This is a kind of prototype of a time machine.
You're the guinea pig.
The passage in the cave lies directly under this bunker.
If opened, the energy flows through this room.
But it needs to be increased.
No DeLorean.
No hissing or steam.
The first time machine is a bunker with four walls.
But it still doesn't quite work.
-Let me out of here. -I can't.
It's the only way for things to be normal again.
Who are you?
You don't know?
The letter.
You burned it.
And yet it still exists.
You'll carry that letter for almost 33 years before you pass it on.
To yourself.
I am you.
My name is Jonas Kahnwald.
I sent the letter to you.
Or should I say, to me.
Everything you're experiencing, I've already experienced.
I burned the letter, just like you. I got it back from our grandmother.
I've already had this conversation.
But I was on the other side then.
We think we're free, but we're not.
We follow the same old path.
Again and again.
That's crazy!
It doesn't make any sense!
You can decide to let me go now.
Come on, let me out!
I thought it was crazy for a long time. That I'm crazy.
But I can't let you out because then you won't become what I am today.
If I now change my past, I will change who I am right now.
And then I won't be able to destroy the hole once and for all.
Why did you kiss Martha?
We're not free in what we do, because we're not free in what we want.
-We can't overcome what's deep within us. -Stop it.
Stop.
Please stop.
I have to bring Mikkel back.
I want everything to go back to normal.
I want all this sick shit to stop!
You still do.
Thirty-three years later. I still want that.
But Mikkel...
Our father is just a small part of a sprawling sickness.
I've seen things that no one should ever see.
I'm sorry.
Wait.
Hey! Hey!
Stop!
Hey!
But a brief blink of an eye And then returns the night
Somehow the future starts somewhere Sometime
I won't wait for long
Love is created through bravery So don't think about it twice
We ride on fiery wheels Towards the future through the night
THURSDAY, NOV 13, 1986: SEVERE ACCIDENT AT INTERSECTION
COME TO THE CABIN. WE NEED TO TALK. PETER.
WHAT DOES NOAH WANT?
Everything is about to begin.
The older Jonas will destroy the hole, but...
he doesn't realize that he will be the one
to trigger its existence.
A paradox.
The cesium in his useless machine
won't destroy the hole forever.
It's what creates it in the first place.
He thinks he's the savior.
But Claudia lied to him.
Most people are nothing but pawns on a chessboard.
Led by an unknown hand.
Their lives exist only to be sacrificed for a higher goal.
Jonas, Mikkel, the children,
they're nothing but unfortunate, yet necessary chess moves
in an eternal war between good and evil.
There are two groups out there fighting to control time travel.
Light and shadow.
We belong to the light.
Don't forget that.
Even though some of what we do is of a dark nature.
But no victory is ever won without sacrifice.
As long as we're in this time loop
we who know have to make sure that every step will be repeated
exactly as it was before.
No matter how inhumane it seems to us.
No matter what sacrifices it demands of us.
But believe me,
the others are the ones who are truly inhumane.
They have lost all humanity. They belong to the shadow.
Your grandmother, Claudia, belongs to the shadow.
Never trust her.
No matter what she says.
A JOURNEY THROUGH TIME
Jonas trusted her before and he will trust her again.
Jonas thinks he will change everything...
but he's just her puppet.
He doesn't deserve any better.
Time is an infinite field.
Millions and millions of interlocking wheels.
We have to be patient to be victorious.
But our time will come.
We will free humanity from its immaturity.
From its pain.
But you must be strong.
Can you do that?
Yes.
It's time.
FOR MOTHER'S DAY 1986
One, two...
One, two, three.
Hey, you. Hands up!
On the ground!
Who are you?
Where am I?
What year is this?
Welcome to the future.
Subtitle translation by Leah Corper, Todd Dennie