TV commissioner Ariki Davis takes on a new job and faces a mysterious death. You can see the six-part crime series about the “One Lane Bridge” at Arte.
[Queenstown -] A narrow car bridge in the New Zealand province where deaths occur again and again. Traffic accidents, suicides. People have, if not fear, then at least respect for the “One Lane Bridge”.
A new commissioner will be transferred to the region. When a farmer is found dead under the bridge, the investigator suspects: murder. Arte will show the six-part series from 2020 from Thursday (9.9., 9 p.m.).
Well worth seeing – not only because of the enigmatic story, but also because of the largely unknown actors and the impressive landscape shots.
Ariki Davis (Dominic Ona-Ariki) does not make himself popular with his boss with his suspicion that the death of the farmer Grub Ryder could have been a crime. Stephen Tremaine (Joel Tobeck) wants to quickly put the case to the files: another suicide on the notorious bridge. The ambition of the new annoys Tremaine.
Why is there no car at the bridge? So how is the farmer supposed to have got there? Why didn’t he just shoot himself in his sheep pasture? And: why is the dead man clutching a molar in his fist? Ariki Davis asks a lot of questions and does not give up.
Director Peter Burger and the scriptwriters Pip Hall and Philip Smith let the audience puzzles along and create horror effects again and again. The successful, dark music – strings, dissonances and minor – heralds disaster.
Davis has visions. He sees things that are not there and sometimes he no longer knows what is reality and what is imagination. A green gecko keeps appearing. His boss thinks Davis is a weirdo, the “eso nonsense” upsets him. Davis, on the other hand, tries to uncover small-town secrets that are still strange to him, to untangle networked relationships and not to hastily tick off the death.
Several people may have had reason to harm Grub Ryder. There was stress in the family and the farm was about to be sold. Ryder’s wife is an alcoholic. There are rumors of a Ryder affair. When the resolution comes, it seems surprisingly simple in view of the mysterious events. But then Ariki Davis has another vision. [dpa]
