Helen Dorn today on ZDF: "The red cloth" – murderer with a mask

Opposites attract: In the ZDF thriller “Das rote Tuch” (The Red Cloth), Hamburg LKA commissioner Helen Dorn investigates the autonomist scene and real estate agents.

Hamburg – It’s a bit strange. Not quite misbehaving yet, but close. The LKA commissioner Helen Dorn (Anna Loos) has just brought the news of the violent death of her husband to the entrepreneur’s wife Katrin Wagner (Annett Renneberg) and with it the unpleasant message that Ralf Wagner had a lover and was responsible for his extramarital tête-à- Têtes had bought a small yacht himself. The widow doesn’t want to believe it. Without a word, Dorn throws the rental contract for the jetty on the table. Tact is different. She didn’t get her last name by accident.

She also meets the business partner of the murdered real estate agent, Thomas Lehmann (Jan Messutat), in a cold to frosty manner. It’s understandable when someone stirs gunpowder into the home-brewed men’s perfume – “a hint in the top note”, as the oily fellow explains, pleased that someone was able to call this otherwise unrecognized special ingredient by its name. All that’s missing is the saying “I love the smell of gunpowder in the early morning…” He cheekily sticks his nose at the investigator. His verdict on their eau de toilette: “Fresh. A bit ordinary.”

Helen Dorn in the new ZDF thriller “The Red Cloth”: Autonomous under suspicion

Lehmann makes no secret of the fact that his flirting behavior is just a scam. The notorious womanizer likes much younger women, as will be shown.

Lehmann’s business partner Wagner burned to death along with his yacht. Someone broke his neck earlier. The two real estate sharks lusted after a valuable property on which an autonomous center with the beautiful name “The Red Cloth” is operated in a squat. The autonomists, led by Dirk Müller (Florian Lukas), then immediately come under suspicion. Anyone who burns cars, at least that’s what they say, probably doesn’t stop at boats either. Peace to the old buildings, war to the rolling and floating palaces.

The audience is one or two steps ahead of the investigative team. It knows that Lehmann was not alone on board and that a masked man was behind the arson attack. He wore the kind of gear the Autonomists prefer. So everything clear?

Helen Dorn fights on ZDF: new crime thriller “The Red Cloth”

Of course not. The connections and relationships are much more complicated, and the screenwriter Andreas Karlström consistently develops these narrative strands quite coherently and with a high degree of internal tension. As an ingredient there is a bit of action. Helen Dorn brawls with a squad of hooded men and doesn’t do badly. Climbing over high lattice fences is also no problem for her.

The effect of the whole owes a balanced relationship between Friedemann Fromm’s subtle directing of the actors and a well-considered camera work. Image designer Ralf Noack accompanies dynamic situations with a moving camera, he calms them down in dialogue scenes.

Kinetically implemented: New Helen Dorn thriller “The Red Cloth” on ZDF

Not in the form of a simple shot-and-countershot routine. Noack plays artfully with the golden section, relates relevant details with diagonals, and takes people in profile. The shots are usually long enough to perceive and interpret this cinematic semantics. The pictures speak for themselves and often do not need any verbal supplementation. Kinetically thought and implemented. And that goes well with the taciturn title character. (Harold Keller)

Previously, the Helen Dorn crime novels on ZDF scored with amazing twists – and with a few victims.

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