The innkeeper’s daughter is dead. Bootz and Lannert investigate in dimly lit living rooms and dark dining rooms. A November depression turned into a film.
The misery is worth running away from: The dead woman’s sister (Irene Böhm) doesn’t want to talk to the investigators Lannert (Richy Müller, left) and Bootz (Felix Klare).
SWR / Benoît Linder
On Sunday, the Stuttgart investigators went to a fictitious village of 120 people in Swabia. It is equipped with all the props that the “Tatort” makers could think of on the subject of provincial contempt. The weather is bad and the trees are bare in this world where nothing else lives. Except for dark hunters who shoot animals and have tendencies towards lynching. A castle ruin towers above everything. Is this still real or is it already satire?
German rural life, with its alleged bourgeoisie tending towards right-wing extremist thinking, is a special love-hate topic for “Tatort”, which generally does not use a fine pen. And this Sunday it will be particularly crazy.
Silent frustration reigns in the dimly lit living rooms of sterile single-family homes. The people are deathly pale. They are lit in such a way that they look more dead than alive, unwashed and wrinkled. They talk like they’ve stuffed themselves with tranquilizers. Artful drum rolls and timpani beats underline the whole mishap (music: Daniel Michael Kaiser).
It was definitely the Pole
In a gloomy inn with stuffed animals on the walls, bloated men spread nasty gossip and rumors. Because the innkeeper’s daughter (Mia Rainprechter) has been murdered. And it could only have been the man whose family immigrated from Poland over fifty years ago and has lived in the community ever since: When it comes to xenophobia, the residents don’t do things by halves.
From the perspective of the television viewers, the people from the village themselves are all suspicious. This is how the script (Norbert Baumgarten) and director (Andreas Kleinert) control it, portraying them as zombie-like but violent idiots.
The lives of the dead are pieced together in flashbacks: With her decision to move to Stuttgart, the young woman causes the collective mental structure of the village to collapse. Her ex-fiancé (Sebastian Fritz) goes crazy and an admirer from her youth (Timocin Ziegler) stalks her. The sister (Irene Böhm) only jogs to – a film couldn’t say this more clearly – run away from all the misery.
And to the mother (Julika Jenkins), the daughter’s decision to leave the place seems like an exodus to hell. When her daughter expresses the desire to do an apprenticeship as a carpenter, she asks whether she thinks she is better than that. Her child slams a stack of plates at her feet, leaves the village and then lets it rip in Stuttgart. “She was too wild,” explains her landlord. Shortly afterwards she lies dead in the bushes with strangulation marks on her neck.
In a Porsche through Stuttgart
“Let them go” is the name of the “crime scene,” which shows his artistic efforts and drags on like a November depression turned into a film. The only people in a good mood are the Stuttgart inspectors Sebastian Bootz (Felix Klare) and Thorsten Lannert (Richy Müller), but they don’t care about the case either. Lannert loses out when it comes to investigating in the provinces, while Bootz is allowed to drive through Stuttgart in a Porsche to interview the dead people’s acquaintances there.
“What happens now?” asks the victim’s father (Moritz Führmann) aggressively after the body is found. “Well, I’ll get an idea,” Lannert replies, as usual, unmoved. What comes out of the picture he creates is dull, brutal and sad. Ultimately, the investigators find out firsthand. In the end, Lannert has his foot in a cast, Bootz his arm. The province shows no mercy.
“Tatort” from Stuttgart: “Let them go”, on Sunday, 8:05 p.m. / 8:15 p.m., SRF 1 / ARD.
Related News :