Crime scene: the dark spot

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Episode of the series Tatort
Original title The dark spot
Country of production Germany
original language German
Production
company		 WDR
length 88 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
classification Episode 511 ( List )
First broadcast October 20, 2002 on Das Erste
Rod
Director Peter F. Bringmann
script Stefan Cantz ,
Jan Hinter
production Sonja Goslicki
music Paul Vincent Gunia
Oliver Gunia
camera Johannes Geyer
cut Manuela Kempf
occupation

The dark spot is a television film from the television crime series Tatort by ARD and ORF . The film was produced by WDR and broadcast for the first time on October 20, 2002. It is the 511th episode in the crime scene series and the first case with Axel Prahl and Jan Josef Liefers as Münster investigators Thiel and Boerne .

action

Chief Detective Frank Thiel is new to the criminal investigation department in Münster. Family reasons prompted him to be transferred from Hamburg. On the way to his newly rented apartment, he meets Jennifer Müller, who enters the apartment of her missing mother Helga Müller via the balcony. When Thiel goes into the underground car park, he discovers blood there, which he gives to the laboratory for analysis. Everything points to a violent crime, so he has Helga Müller written out for a search. When he moves into his apartment, Thiel meets the deputy head of forensics, Prof. Karl-Friedrich Boerne, who is both his landlord and neighbor. Due to the intellectual and cultural differences between the two, there is always a little friction between them. Even before Thiel was able to unpack his things properly in the new apartment, he received the news that a body had been found. It is a bog body that is being examined by Boerne and his assistant, the short Silke Haller, known as "Alberich". It turns out that the bog body is the daughter of Hermann and Annette Alsfeld who has been missing for 20 years and who disappeared from her boarding school in Switzerland.

After a few days, Helga Müller's body was found in the trunk of her car. During the investigation, there are links between the Helga Müller case and the Alsfeld case. Thiel finds out that the murdered Helga Müller once worked as a nanny for the wealthy Alsfelds. Her killer is a former British soldier who has only made a name for himself as a petty criminal. He was hired by Alsfeld's wife Annette to prevent Helga Müller from revealing that Hermann had fathered a daughter with his daughter Stephanie, who had died in the moor. Helga Müller raised this child as her own and named it Jennifer. Two years before the investigation, Jennifer met Hermann Alsfeld by chance and had started a relationship with the much older, but very attractive man (he knew that he was her biological father, but she wasn't). When her mother noticed this, she insisted that Jennifer separate from him, but the daughter refused. So she only saw the chance to tell her child the whole truth if Alsfeld did not end the relationship on his own. In order to prevent what would inevitably have made the incest connection public, the contract murder was staged by Ms. Alsfeld. When Thiel and Boerne arrest Frau Alsfeld at the funeral service for Stefanie Alsfeld, her husband Hermann remains alone. As the three of them have just left the house, a shot is fired inside.

Locations

In the first episode, a house on Leipziger Platz in Cologne served as the backdrop for Thiel and Boerne's shared house in Münster

The first crime scene in Münster was mainly created in the center of Münster. The scenes in which the bog corpse was discovered were made on the Venner Moor near Senden , approx. 15 km southwest of Münster. The exterior shots of the Alsfeld family's country estate were shot at Harkotten Castle near Sassenberg , approx. 30 km east of Münster. The interior shots of the country estate, on the other hand, were shot in Haus Steinfurt in Drensteinfurt . A Wilhelminian style apartment building on Leipziger Platz in Cologne-Nippes served as the residential building in which Thiel and Boerne live . The shots at the abandoned barracks were made on a group of barracks that were demolished shortly after the shooting on the area of Camp Astrid , east of Aachen .

occupation

Ulrich Noethen was originally intended to play the role of Karl-Friedrich Boerne , but was unable to maintain his original promise because of other interesting role offers that would have collided with the long-term Tatort format.

reception

Audience rating

The Tatort episode saw 8.82 million viewers when it was first broadcast, which corresponds to a market share of 24.9%.

criticism

The editorial team of TV Spielfilm wrote that the first crime scene from Münster was “Holmes and Watson in Münsteranisch” .

In a review published by tittelbach.tv in 2016 , the journalist Tilmann P. Gangloff compared the crime story with the film Chinatown (1974). The film successfully balances between crime and comedy, apart from commissioner candidate Bulle, the recurring secondary characters would be introduced “lightly” and “the hybrid crime comedy format ” would have “brought a new color to the ARD Sunday series”.

Award

The dark spot was nominated for the Adolf Grimme Prize in 2003 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for crime scene: The dark spot . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry (PDF; test number: 118874-a / V). Template: FSK / maintenance / type not set and Par. 1 longer than 4 characters
  2. ↑ New WDR Tatort team shoots for the first time in Münster - Axel Prahl and Jan Josef Liefers investigate in "Der dunkle Fleck" , WDR press release on presseportal.de from June 4, 2002, accessed on January 1, 2019.
  3. ↑ Quotas from www.tatort-fundus.de
  4. ↑ TV feature film : film review
  5. ^ Tilmann P. Gangloff : "Tatort - Der dunkleck" series , in: tittelbach.tv from August 4, 2016, accessed on January 1, 2019.
  6. ^ Tatort Commissioner on the Grimme Course , Spiegel online from January 28, 2003, accessed on December 16, 2012
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