In the seventh film of the ORF-ZDF series “The Dead of Salzburg”, classic crime thriller mixes with an abundance of funny and subtle ideas.
Haze hangs over Salzburg. A raven sails over the Hohensalzburg Fortress and the cathedral in the direction of the Salzach. It continues underwater with a surprising cut. An ancient leather suitcase rests on the bottom, gets buoyant, and comes to the surface. He will soon become an evidence object in a homicide investigation.
The authors Silvia Wohlmuth and Klaus Ortner and director Erhart Riedlsperger have hatched a very original way of introducing the piece of luggage into the plot. An amphibious bus starts on the bank to show a group of tourists to Salzburg from the waterfront. But then the screw jams, the skipper looks, and what he discovers will thoroughly spoil the day for him and his passengers.
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An unusual overture, which at the same time establishes the underlying theme of this crime film: the benefits and harmful excesses of the tourism industry.
The murder victim Lien Kang (Andrea Guo) worked as a tour guide for the Mandl bus company in Salzburg and was in a relationship with Konstantin Mandl (Max Paier), the operator’s son. Kang is German of Chinese origin. Major Peter Palfinger (Florian Teichtmeier) and District Inspector Irene Russmeyer (Fanny Krausz) respond with sighs to the information that Kang comes from Traunstein in Upper Bavaria. Because that means that you have to work once more with the irritable Hubert Mur (Michael Fitz) from the Traunstein Criminal Police Inspection. From experience a rather exhausting undertaking.
But the detective chief inspector with the speaking name surprises his surroundings and also the regular viewers of the series. He and his wife Helene (Natalie O’Hara) have overcome their crisis. The friend of lavish meat dishes has embarked on a fast and is attending group therapy to get his angry surges under control. He even succeeds. His unusually gentle behavior irritates his troubled adlatus, police chief Wagner (Sebastian Edtbauer), to such an extent that now he for his part loses his composure and complains, roaring across the office, about Mur’s new manners. Mur reacts with an outburst of anger, and everything is back to normal.
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“Treibgut” is the seventh film in the Austrian-German series “Die Toten von Salzburg”, co-produced by ORF and ZDF, which has been broadcast since 2016, and is once again the most enjoyable one when you have seen the earlier episodes.
In addition to the investigators, characters from their private environment also belong to the recurring staff. Peter Palfinger’s brother Sebastian (Simon Hatzl), a renegade priest with frequently changing professions, is always good for a subtle punch line. He is currently working as a tourist guide – not in mass tourism, but in “organic tourism”, as he puts it – preparing for the state examination and flirting heavily with the distinctive agency manager Uschi Kastner (Barbara Kaudelka), but he is also with us District inspector Russmeyer befriended, which in the course of history puts her in a very delicate and rather precarious position.
The dead of Salzburg: flotsam
Wednesday, August 11th, 8:15 p.m., ZDF
The story of Hofrat Alfons Seywald (Erwin Steinhauer) is also continued in an edifying way. Because of his homosexuality, the President of the State Parliament, Zirner (Susanne Czepl), would like to urge him into early retirement. The quiet Seywald reacts defiantly – he makes his life partner, the undertaker René Kleist (Michael Schönborn), a quick proposal of marriage. Shaking her head, the President of the State Parliament commented on what she believed to be the deplorable state of the crime department: “A disabled person, a drug user and a coming-out.”
ZDF: The dead of Salzburg – with heavenly assistance
Just a selection from the incidents, often served with ironic appeal, with which the team of authors garnishes the classic murder investigation. Once again, it leads in high circles, explores the depths of honorable houses and respected families. The crime plot is not too ingenious, occasionally chance has to help, and there is also a heavenly miracle, but these shortcomings are covered up in a very sympathetic way with funny ideas.
The handicap of the wheelchair user Palfinger, who suffered paraplegia as a result of an accident with a paraglider, is discussed less often than at the beginning, but aptly, when the stairlift in a restaurant does not work. Incidentally, an occasion for a meta joke. In average television films, aids for the handicapped usually only come into the picture when one of the characters is dependent on them. So rarely. Quite ambiguous when Hofrat Seywald comments: “This filth has only existed since you were in Salzburg.”
Anyone who has a weakness for such subtleties, time-critical peaks and, last but not least, Austrian peculiarities such as old-fashioned professional and authority names – Seywald is head of the “Violence and Blood Offenses Department” – will be welcomed by director Erhart Riedlsperger and the authors Silvia Wohlmuth and Klaus Ortner, By the way, both are also active as actors, very well entertained. (Harald Keller)
