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"Tatort" scene with Martin Wuttke (l.), Margarita Broich and Wolfram Koch: Maybe you took the wrong drugs?
Photo: HR
Ketamine and cocaine, psilocybin and lysergic acid diethylamide, corn and pilsner and ergot fungus: this "crime scene" is full of psychoactive substances and alcoholic stimulants.
All sorts of things are thrown in and poured out here, but there is also plenty of philosophizing about it.
The stuff is thrown in a sophisticated villa under the direction of the therapist Dr.
Adrian Goser (Martin Wuttke).
The charismatic bald man is, as the film once put it, a »luminary of psycholysis«, that is, a specialist in self-discovery courses that are driven by psychedelic drugs.
The team of investigators Anna Janneke (Margarita Broich) and Paul Brix (Wolfram Koch) philosophize at the counter of the bar owner Fanny (Zazie de Paris).
Brix is more of the grain-and-pilsner type;
Janneke raves about the ergot fungus, which supposedly brought the first Christians into religious ecstasy.
The policewoman can well imagine taking a break from the ego by taking drugs under supervision, for example by taking LSD.
Psychonauts on a long journey
The last session that Dr.
Goser - author of the bestseller "Auszug aus dem Ich" - carried out with a group of protégés.
Six of the participants died.
Only the doctor himself survived and is now amazed in front of the investigators about the fatal outcome of the session.
After all, all participants were “experienced psychonauts”.
Author Michael Comtesse (»Tatort: Dein Name sei Harbinger«) and director and co-author Nikias Chryssos (»A Pure Place«) find a strong rhythm at the beginning: They work smoothly with contemporary passages and flashbacks: The cheerfully enlightening drug -Talk and the visually inviting psychedelic imagery reflect the feeling of happiness at that moment when the collective trip had not yet turned murderous.
The good thing is that Comtesse and Chryssos, for all their ironic playfulness, take their subject matter seriously, at least in the beginning.
The long, quiet scene is brilliant when the therapist penetrates deep into the trauma of a trip participant (strong: Aenne Schwarz), who was kidnapped as a girl and never processed this experience despite all the sovereignty she played.
Can the controlled use of psychoactive substances actually help to overcome inner barriers and explore unexplored regions of the ego?
Unfortunately, in the second half, the filmmakers are no longer interested in this question at all.
Just as the liberating trip turns into horror in the plot of the film, the staging changes from cheerful drug reflection to a completely out of control grotesque.
The ridiculous twists in the plot and the at times overcharging of the actors leave you exhausted and at a loss at the end.
But maybe we just didn't do the right drugs.
Rating:
5 out of 10 points
»Crime scene: life death ecstasy«,
Sunday, 8.15 p.m., the first