"Tatort" today from Stuttgart: "The video evidence" in a quick check

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Richy Müller (r.) As Lannert and Felix Klare as Bootz: men who stare at rubble.

Photo: Benoît Linder / SWR

The scenario:

The power of the images, the powerlessness of those depicted.

After the Christmas party at an insurance company, an employee with a crushed body is found in the lobby;

Before falling from a balustrade, the man made a cell phone film that shows his boss and a colleague engaged in a sexual act.

Lannert (Richy Müller) and Bootz (Felix Klare) watch the video again and again.

Both parties involved are suspicious - also because their statements contradict each other: Department head Oliver Jansen (Oliver Wnuk) claims that the sexual act was wanted by both;

Mathematician Kim Tramell (Ursina Lardi) says she was forced.

The highlight:

Consensual one-night stand or sexual assault?

In the course of this cleverly built (book: Katharina Adler) and sensitively staged crime thriller (director: Rudi Gaul), the unambiguous visual material appears more and more ambiguous.

A "crime scene" that requires a lot of attention and hits the groundbreaking debate about sexual violence and abuse of power.

If you have problems with ambivalences, you shouldn't turn it on.

Fittingly: Read here how the author Adler envisions the perfect novel for the year 2021.

The picture:

Men who stare at half-undressed bodies: Again and again the investigators sift through the grainy video, which they understand less and less how to interpret.

The dialogue:

Lannert and Bootz show the suspect Tramell the video:

Lannert: »Shall I tell you what we're seeing here?

We see Mr. Jansen and you close together on the couch.

They kiss amicably.

Mr. Jansen tries to move his hand into your genital area - which you fight off first. "

Tramell: "Yes!"

Bootz: “Yes, but then you respond with a kiss.

You go to the door, but don't leave the room. "

Lannert: “Instead, come back and sit down on the couch with Mr. Jansen again.

You satisfy him with your hand and obviously want to go on. "

Tramell: "You know what I wanted, don't you?"

Lannert: "No, but I know what I see."

The song:

"Blown Away" by Sivert Høyem.

The gloomy ballad with a lot of reverb and twang can be heard in the scene when Inspector Lannert shoots himself with red wine while the ready-made pizza crackles in the oven.

Melancholy break in a complicated analytical crime thriller in which there is otherwise no room for melancholy.

The review:

8 out of 10 points.

Risky border crossing on the subject of sexual violence, which also works because the great leading actress Ursina Lardi plays out all the contradictions of her character without even relativizing them once.

After the numerous bankruptcies of the previous weeks, the "Tatort" proves its strength as a debate driver right at the beginning of the year.

»Scene of the crime: The video evidence«,

New Year's Eve, 8:15 pm, Das Erste