The discreet, strong Freiburg crime scene “Sara’s confession”.
It’s appealing when the police at the scene of the crime don’t just have to find out what the television audience already knows or has to guess so clearly that they would want the ladies and gentlemen from the police station to have the same idea. Here the solution is not even particularly original, but the long-missed piece of information is only found nine minutes before the end.
What does original mean here? Franziska Tobler and Friedemann Berg, Eva Löbau and Hans-Jochen Wagner just sit at their desks and ponder. They read files and talk, and then they brood again. Sometimes they are out and about, Berg steps in dog dirt, they drive to any witnesses, then more files are handed to them. Then they ponder again. It’s exciting and interesting, and it’s purposeful.
In addition, there is snow in Freiburg, and once they have to run after a guy. The man, Tobler behind, slips in front, Berg soon out of sight. Tobler and the man run with that choking, exhausting caution that you need on such a surface, it takes forever, because both are fit and have the will to persevere, but of course we can’t talk now. Director Kai Wessel and his cameraman Andreas Schäfauer seem to just let things go that way. But the intensity is immense and palpable precisely because it is fleeting.
The avoidance of the overly clear, the slight blurriness, which have more people and situations than most television crime thrillers want to admit, characterize “Sara’s Confession” on a subtle screenplay by Astrid Ströher. You and Wessel must have agreed to show the big things in the precise little things and not to always discuss everything afterwards. A lot stays the same. For example, the fabulous sequence in which investigator Berg clashes with an extremely realistically aggressive female gazer who is also filming a cell phone, then goes viral and apparently has to spend a crate of beer on the police station. Or the little celebration for Sara, who has just been released from prison. Or the scenes in which she is harassed while working in the canteen kitchen and initially ignores it. Because their position is unfavourable. What Sara wants now is to live the rest of her life peacefully. You can see her shopping with her daughter. She doesn’t like the scarf. Sara has problems, she wants to be left alone, but she is also a person with ideas and a will of her own, and maybe she is also a bit manipulative, isn’t she?
Above all, then, it is Johanna Wokalek who shapes the film, she too with a presence that does not have to struggle, exhibit or explain. The construction into which your Sara got is reminiscent of the Cologne crime scene from last week. Sara was in prison for five years for allegedly stabbing her father, but unlike the actor in Four Years, she confessed to the crime at the time. Now it’s revealed that given her alcohol intoxication at the time, she’s not sure she did.
She confessed, she says, out of exhaustion. During the interrogation, the now retired investigator Werner Wölbern put pressure on her. Tobler and Berg – together almost the personification of reason and next to Johanna Wokalek, that’s an achievement, but not boring – are appalled. However, the case is only resubmitted because – the classic – shortly after Sara’s release there is another dead person nearby.
The gears of the investigative work run as sluggishly as the gears of the crime that wants to remain in the dark. Only when the evil comes to light must it quickly try to weasel away. Also worth seeing: action and police routine, plus the sheer amazement. It’s not all clear. Most of it isn’t explained and isn’t really in the question “Who was it?”. Still good to know then.
“Crime scene: Sara’s confession”, ARD, Sunday, 8:15 p.m.
