In the first Frankfurt “Tatort”, which was filmed under Corona conditions, black humor and a difficult father-son relationship play a role.
Frankfurt / Mannheim – Frankfurt TV commissioners Anna Janneke (Margarita Broich) and Paul Brix (Wolfram Koch) have had to do with toxic family relationships several times in the past.
Her new “crime scene” case on Sunday at 8.15 p.m. in the first is called “Anyone who hesitates is dead” and reveals a difficult father-son relationship. That doesn’t exactly make the investigation of the kidnapping of the hip amateur golfer Frederick Seibold (Helgi Schmid) any easier.
In the first few minutes, the audience already suspects that Seibold Junior has little to expect from his father Konrad (Bernhard Schütz). “Your father is angry,” says the senior’s lawyer. A few minutes later, Frederick has other problems than the argument with his father: four perpetrators masked with dog heads kidnap him, Frederick finds himself tied up in a kind of dungeon and reacts increasingly panicked to the imprisonment.
Janneke and Brix find out about the kidnapping from Frederick’s ex-girlfriend Bille Kerbel (Britta Hammelstein) – she has received a cut off finger. The single mother cannot pay the ransom, but she suspects that the kidnappers also turned to Seibold Senior. He reacts indignantly to the investigators’ visit, even if a severed finger was sent to him. “He’s behind it himself,” he says and doesn’t hide the fact that his Persian cat Caligula obviously means more to him than his own son. And anyway – why didn’t the kidnapper send Frederick’s tattooed and easily identifiable little finger?
The investigators are irritated: “Either Seibold is disturbed – or he has a corpse in the basement himself,” they suspect. Frustration also spreads among the kidnappers: “Your papa apparently wants you to die,” informs one of the dog head carriers hostage Frederick.
The audience will find out who is behind the kidnappers in the middle of the “crime scene” and much earlier than the police officers. The rather accidental discovery of a woman’s corpse with fragments of Frederick’s skin on is a first hot lead for the investigators. The dead woman trained in a martial arts club for women – are there any clues?
The change of scene from the villa to the Bahnhofsviertel, where the association is based, fulfills Frankfurt clichés: garbage on the street, aggression, “asshole” calls. Only Brix and Janneke do not get the information they were hoping for from operator Conny Kaiserling (Christina Große). This gives Brix’s roommate Fanny (Zazie de Paris) the unfamiliar chance to go undercover – and literally more power. “We women are simply brought up too nicely,” Conny explains to the participants during a trial lesson. Now it is important to overcome the bite inhibitions.
This “crime scene” full of twists and turns and new developments is the first that Hessischer Rundfunk filmed under Corona conditions. Distance, masks and a hygiene concept were part of everyday shooting.
“At the center of my stories are ambivalent, vulnerable characters who fight bravely but don’t always win,” says director Petra Lüschow, who also wrote the script, about her work. “I’m interested in why we stay trapped and what keeps us trapped, but the tragic underlying it can often be better specified in the comic. Comedy is transformed pain. “
In this “crime scene” case, it is precisely the female characters who show strength. Above all, father and son Seibold, on the other hand, seem incapable of empathy and understanding, while both Frederick’s ex-girlfriend and the women in the martial arts club uphold loyalty and female friendships.
The Mannheim-born actor Helgi Schmid describes his character Frederick Seibold as “an eccentric guy”. “The” Tatort “format still works so well in my opinion, even after so many years, because everyone knows how the compressed plot works. Murder case, investigation, solution. You know what you have – and still get something new on offer, ”he says in the dpa interview. “I don’t think the” crime scene “will die out. The narrative structure became a wonderful field of experimentation, and great films are made time and again. ”Dpa
