Enlarge image
Odenthal (Ulrike Folkerts, left) and Stern (Lisa Bitter) at the scene of the crime: Dramatically naive.
Photo: Christian Koch / SWR
This is a "crime scene" about anger, diffuse, aimless, immeasurable anger.
But this is also a »crime scene« from Ludwigshafen, where you can usually find handy answers to unwieldy phenomena.
So the anger thing is somehow not as difficult as it seems at first.
The solution: just boldly shout into a plastic bag.
At least that's what Commissioner Odenthal (Ulrike Folkerts) suggests to her colleague Stern (Lisa Bitter) after she got angry about her ex-husband.
When Stern really starts to freak out, Odenthal gets a bag of clothes from the trunk of her car, into which the other woman then yells her frustration.
Then, relaxed and in a good mood, the investigations continue.
In the context of the violent theme of this »crime scene«, this almost seems like a trivialization of violence.
The thriller trumps with a strong beginning, because the perspective of the violent perpetrator is consistently taken for a brief moment: A nine-year-old marches through his school with a blank stare, the camera follows him at shoulder height.
All around him is sheer horror and anxious murmuring: "They let Marlon in!" Actually, the boy should stay at home because of his destructiveness, now he has apparently come back to show the others the right way.
On the audio track you can hear a metallic sound that sounds like tinnitus.
The situation will soon escalate here, there will soon be an outbreak of violence.
Yoga, singing bowls, autogenic training
A little later, Marlon lies dead in front of a staircase from which someone must have pushed him down.
Exhaustion and relief seem to mix with the dismay and sadness of the faculty and parents.
Except for the social worker at the school (strong performance: Ludwig Trepte), who had a close relationship with him, sheer fear of the unpredictable boy prevailed.
Even Marlon's own parents, owners of a small bookshop, had long since capitulated to him and have been blaming each other ever since.
They had tried everything that could have served to calm things down: yoga, singing bowls, autogenic training, the whole program.
Marlon remained the ticking bomb that no one could defuse.
In many ways, this »crime scene« is reminiscent of Nora Fingscheidt's indie drama »Systemsprenger«, which tells the story of a nine-year-old child whose anti-aggression measures fail and who is therefore passed on from one care facility to the next with no solution in sight is.
You have to be able to endure »System Crasher« – the title refers to a fixed term in intensive pedagogy: The film shows problems without faking answers – and yet stays very close to its protagonist.
The creators of »Marlon« take the opposite path: They search for solutions, but in doing so they distance themselves further and further from their title character.
Again and again, the investigators chew through the complex issue of aggression and auto-aggression based on their own experiences;
they repeatedly target the school system.
"Fucking inclusion!" moans a father who saw his daughter threatened by Marlon, who seemed uncontrollable.
Apparently, the school was not at all prepared for the inclusion model that was propagated there.
A job as a social worker and half as a psychologist was hardly enough for the desired integration ideal.
»Words also hurt«
Director Isabel Braak had already shown another system on the brink of collapse last year with an MDR "crime scene": In "Rettung so nah" she showed in a powerful scenario the state of emergency that prevailed among Dresden's rescue physicians and the social gaffes that resulted followed.
Her new case (book: Karlotta Ehrenberg) doesn't really get off the ground after the impressive beginning, because the catastrophe is repeatedly contained in the optimistic constant chatter of the inspectors.
Once Odenthal gets upset about a girl's father who wanted to force Marlon out of school.
The subsequent dialogue with the colleague sums up the dilemma of this touchingly attempted report on violence.
Odenthal: "He's really damaged, that guy."
Stern: "Well, at least Marlon broke his daughter's arm."
Odenthal: "Madita isn't an angel either."
Stern: "I don't think you can compare that."
Odenthal: "Why?
Words hurt too.«
Nothing against a constructive attitude to life, but in the face of a speechless act of violence, the well-meaning verbal doctoring by Odenthal and Stern seems dramatically naive: "System crasher" in the sweetener variant.
Rating:
4 out of 10 points
"Tatort: Marlon,"
Sunday, 8:15 p.m., Das Erste
