“Leben Tod Ekstasy”, a strenuous and therefore tiring Frankfurt crime scene
At the latest when landline and mobile phones don’t work, at the very latest when the patrolman and Paul Brix separate immediately in the dark villa, one runs upstairs, the other downstairs, but at the very latest when the law enforcement officers’ weapons are flying through the air as if he had perpetrators can soap them up beforehand – there’s no doubt that this is one of those crime scenes where the police are more stupid than they allow themselves to be. Not to mention regulations. Would a refresher course for Janneke and Brix, Margarita Broich and Wolfram Koch help?
Probably not, because director Nikias Chryssos, who is also responsible for the book with Michael Comtess at the new Frankfurt crime scene, wants it like this: One of these bloody (eleven dead, if we counted correctly), erratic, losing sight of his exciting topic TV thrillers, where the makers might have thought of satire, without really going through with it.
A true case may have given the impetus for the episode “Leben Tod Ekstasy”: two people died years ago in Berlin during a so-called psycholytic therapy session. Among other things, LSD is used under supervision.
It is not due to Martin Wuttke as a kind of guru that soon there will be no talk of ecstasy. dr Adrian Goser gives his patients – he says “companions” – all the encouragement, promises a “journey to the source”, a “third eye” that they could even reach for the golden fleece.
It’s just a drop
Then he puts a drop in glasses with champagne. Then the companions die horribly. One by stabbing his abdomen in delusion. One by jumping from the balcony hallucinating. The picture turns red and the camera shakes. “Damn freaks,” Brix states upon arrival. And finds that colleague Janneke is amazingly “esoteric”.
“10 days later”: Janneke and Brix don’t get any further, Goser doesn’t remember anything or pretends not to remember. On site, in his villa, his memory should be helped. Apparently the police put the trip out of custody in the newspaper or on the Internet, because someone seems to be well prepared… see the beginning.
House of the Dragon fans recently complained about the darkness in an episode. Here Janneke, Brix, Gosen and a patrolman trudge through dark rooms as if there were no light switches in the villa. Get them killed, knocked out, guns removed. A surprise guest (Pit Bukowski) climbs out of the cellar, whose movement is reminiscent of a Frankenstein monster. Does the director want to have fun?
There are short flashbacks to some of those seeking help from Gosen – and that would have been a topic: the “damned freaks”, people who follow a charismatic therapist for different reasons. One, Syd, Frederik von Lüttichau, was a soldier and has a war trauma. The other, Ellen, Aenne Schwarz, was kidnapped, locked up for days, cut her skin every day. As an artist, she injured herself à la Marina Abramovicz.
But everything is scurried over, with fast cuts, a swaying camera, and plenty of fake blood. And at some point (almost) everyone will be asked what his or her favorite movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger is. So the last complete non-surprise tonight is Brix’s response: Kindergarten Cop.
“Crime scene: life death ecstasy”, ARD, Sun., 8.15 p.m.
