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Photo:
Stefan Erhard / rbb
The scenario:
German crimes, German oblivion: After the murder of the patriarch of a construction company, Rubin (Meret Becker) and Robert Karow (Mark Waschke) join the intricate structure of a family.
You meet a West Berlin businessman who is building a Shoah center in Israel, but also an East Berlin right-wing populist from a party called the Völkische Front, who dismisses the Holocaust as a triviality.
Atrocities of war, building of the wall, reunification - in order to solve the case, the investigators are confronted with 75 years of German-German history.
The highlight:
In the background of this "crime scene" you can see the memorial to the murdered Jews of Europe, the remains of the Berlin Wall or posters with right-wing populist slogans - but the film also traces the immaterial mechanisms of memorization: who remembers what and for what reasons?
And who opposes it with repression and why?
The picture:
The corpse of the building contractor, around the neck of the dead man hangs a plaque with the words "I was too cowardly to fight for Germany".
With this slogan, SS henchmen hanged boys and men who did not want to go to the advancing front in the last days of the war.
75 years after the capitulation - and the Nazi rule still seems close.
The dialogue:
Is the murder a neo-Nazi crime?
Rubin has a sarcastic exchange of blows with his colleague from the State Security about the area of responsibility:
State security guard: "Anti-Semitic? What happens in Israel doesn't bother the right-wing extremists at all. If he had built a refugee home here or a mosque ..."
Rubin: "Either way: Execution with SS quote. Your playground."
State security guard: "We are not investigating a murder."
Rubin: "Oh, shall we do a chicken ladder? Head of department?"
State security guard shakes her head: "Stay with you. I promise. The criminal investigation department has already investigated the NSU murders so brilliantly."
The song:
"No beautiful country at this time".
A choir of old people in a nursing home sings this folk song - including the widow of the murder victim.
The old lady's short-term memory is damaged, but the long-term memory works perfectly.
She recalls the words of the song from her youth - as well as the betrayal of a friend whom she betrayed to the Gestapo at that time.
Despite partial dementia: There is no benign veil of oblivion over this guilt.
The review:
9 out of 10 points.
Berlin between commemoration and memory loss - a disturbing psychological thriller about shame, guilt and denial.
The analysis:
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"Tatort: A few words after midnight",
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