Lotte Jäger and the dead in the village
| Episode of the Lotte Jäger series | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Lotte Jäger and the dead in the village |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| length | 90 minutes |
| classification | Episode 2 ( list ) |
| First broadcast | September 3, 2018 on ZDF |
| Rod | |
| Director | Francis Meletzky |
| script | Rolf Basedow |
| production |
Joachim Kosack , Karoline Griebner |
| music | Annette Focks |
| camera | Bella halves |
| cut | Benjamin Hembus |
| occupation | |
| |
| chronology | |
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← Predecessor |
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Lotte Jäger und die Tote im Dorf is a German television film by Francis Meletzky from 2018 , which was produced on behalf of ZDF . It is another film with the special investigator Lotte Jäger, played by Silke Bodenbender , who is responsible for unresolved old cases in the Potsdam Murder Commission. This is the second film in the series after the first film Lotte Jäger and the dead girl , which was broadcast in 2016 . Major roles are occupied by Sebastian Hülk , Hansjürgen Hürrig , Alexander Hörbe , Christoph Letkowski , Veronika Nowag-Jones , Hans Klima , René Schwittay and David Bredin .
In the opening credits it is said that the film was "inspired by real events".
action
Detective Superintendent Kurt Schaake introduces Detective Superintendent Lotte Jäger, special investigator in the Potsdam Murder Commission for unsolved old cases, to the retired Detective Superintendent Konrad Dahlke, his former instructor. Dahlke and Schaake remember an unsolved murder case in the Brandenburg village of Großlühne, 16 years ago. One day before the murder of a young woman, the whole place was still in a state of joy because the local football club had won an important promotion game. Kurt Schaake remembers that Manuela Kirschner, who was later murdered, left the party around two o'clock after saying goodbye to her fiancé Jan Stober. She then went away alone. Manuela must have opened the door to someone, perhaps because she thought it was her fiancé or because she knew the person in question. The perpetrator tried to rape the young woman and stabbed her over and over again. The murder weapon, a knife with a 10 cm long blade, was never found. Only the father and brother of the victim, who were traveling at the time, were definitely innocent. Everyone else in town had something to hide. Surveys did not reveal anything, since most of them were heavily drunk that night and did not even know how they got home. The group of suspects was then limited to three young men and the then head of the football club. Schaake presents Jäger a picture of the then 18-year-old main suspect Tom Riebe, who had no alibi for several hours on the night of the crime. At the party, he danced again and again with Manuela, who then blocked further attempts probably because of her fiancé.
Dahlke says that a video cassette was leaked anonymously to him that contained recordings from the night of the crime. At the time, they searched desperately but unsuccessfully for this cassette, explains Schaake. You don't just send something like that, adds Dahlke. At that time the entire village held together, explains Dahlke, he still believes that everyone knows what happened back then.
Jäger sets off to Brandenburg in her convertible and rents a room in the local inn in Großlühne. Hostility strikes you in town. She has nightmares at night. She speaks to Kurt Holler, the landlord of the inn, whose wife Ulla had a fatal car accident ten months ago for incomprehensible reasons. At that time everyone actually died in town, says Holler. Next, Jäger speaks to Jan Stober, who is now married to the mayor's daughter. He blames himself for not accompanying his fiancée. Jäger also talks to Hans Breth, Manuela's former landlord, who says that he has not been able to rent the apartment since then and that he liked Manuela. She was brave, together with Ulla, the wife of the landlord Holler, she fought to ensure that they weren't put a lot of wind turbines in front of their noses. Now both women are dead.
Jäger notes that the home of Tom Riebe, who was the main suspect at the time, is directly opposite the house in which Manuela lived and that he could look into the young woman's room from his window. Rubbe's parents react negatively to hunters. His wife Claudia is even threatening the commissioner subliminally. Further conversations with residents do not really lead to any further in the case. Florian Grasso, who runs a flight school, tells Jäger that everyone in the village who suspected him died for him. Jäger flies a lap across the village with him and is enthusiastic about this experience. Then the commissioner speaks to Jan Stober and then observes a strange gathering of different people.
After Jäger spoke to Lore Kosch and had a glass of juice with her, she had skips while driving. When she comes to she is in the wrong room in the inn and realizes that Kurt Schaake has meanwhile arrived, who was worried because he could no longer reach her. Jäger looks desperate, you turn around in circles, she tells Schaake, everyone is lying. It is now known that there was a garbage dump in the village, which influential local residents operated for four years, for which they received ample funding from the Treuhand . Could it be that Manuela Kirschner and Ulla Holler did not only defend themselves against the wind turbines, but also against a landfill. Hans Breth shows the investigators photos that prove that radioactive waste has been disposed of at the landfill. Maybe that's why so many people in the village got sick, including Manuela's mother.
Jäger has an inspiration for the murder knife, which is actually found on the delimited area by means of metal detectors . Holler is now coming out with the fact that his wife had put together documents with which she wanted to be made public, among other things, it was about groundwater contamination. Not only radioactive waste was disposed of at the landfill, but also nuclear waste from the Russian barracks. This would have saved the investors a lot of money. No expensive hazardous waste disposal, he says bitterly, but simply throw it away with us. His wife no longer wanted to listen to him - and then she was dead.
The villagers are summoned for a saliva sample based on a court order . The result of this test is more than surprising. None of the villagers is the culprit. The result of the DNA found a match with a man who had been in prison for a different offense for years. Suddenly life in the village comes back to life and the old sense of community, a burden that has been going on for years, has been lifted from the shoulders of the residents.
production
Filming, background
Lotte Jäger and the Dead in the Village was filmed from May 11 to June 14, 2017 in Berlin and the surrounding area. The working title was Lotte Jäger and the Village of the Damned . UFA Fiction was responsible for the film .
Second level: Jäger speaks to her therapist on the phone, she obviously suffers from anxiety and takes pills. She wants to know if she can increase the dose in the short term. In between, she has breakdowns from time to time, which she apparently gets under control relatively quickly. She tells Schaake that it is over with her boyfriend Uwe.
In an interview, Silke Bodenbender said about her role as Lotte Jäger that she had always rejected roles as a commissioner, but that she had hit a nerve with her. Lotte Jäger solves old cases, works on contaminated sites in every respect and manages without a weapon. Jäger is also a very complex personality with rough edges and also a great zest for life, who has changed the police station due to her anxiety and is now being dealt with old cases that are not so urgent in the investigation. In response to the statement, Bodenbender said that she was considered a woman for difficult roles, which she chose based on personal relevance and the premise of whether she would help her personally. Her preference is for characters who develop slowly over the course of the film, who may seem unfinished at the beginning and who would only be filled with depth and character during the shooting.
publication
Lotte Jäger and the Dead in the Village was broadcast for the first time on ZDF on September 3, 2018 as part of the TV film of the week .
Lotte Jäger and the Dead in the Village was released on DVD by Studio Hamburg Enterprises on March 8, 2019 , together with the previously created film Lotte Jäger and the Dead Girl .
reception
Audience rating
When it was first broadcast, the film was viewed by 5.99 million viewers, corresponding to a market share of 20.8 percent.
criticism
The reviews were mixed, the ratings ranged from great approval to strong criticism:
For the critics of the television magazine TV Spielfilm , Lotte Jäger und die Tote im Dorf was a "quiet provincial thriller with a surprising finale". In contrast to the beginning of the series 'Lotte Jäger und das tote Mädchen' (2016), “East German contemporary history is more of an accessory”. Nevertheless, author Rolf Basedow gives the crime thriller an original twist: More important than exposing the perpetrator is the question of who it was not. The fact that Jäger suffers from anxiety disorders seems "rather stereotypical after so many behavioral TV investigators", but Bodenbender plays the character "very likeable". The film received one out of three possible points for claim and two out of three for tension and the best possible rating, thumbs up.
Rainer Tittelbach gave the film 4.5 out of six possible stars on his website tittelbach.tv and wrote: The second film with Silke Bodenbender “as a mentally unstable LKA officer from Potsdam” begins as a “typical village crime drama: inscrutable people, a hand of suspects "Silence, half-truths, fear". It is not a “conventional detective crime”, however, since the author Rolf Basedow does without “classic questioning or interrogation” and there is also “no police station”. Even if Meletzky's “visually excellent film does not come close to the complex opening film”, this “somewhat different heroine definitely has what it takes to follow in the footsteps of a Bella Block ”. However, this film “neither narrative nor dramaturgically achieved the complexity and beguiling complexity of the opening film 'Lotte Jäger und das tote Mädchen', which was also much more concrete in terms of GDR history and socio-political and therefore a lot more fascinating”. “This figure and the motif of the unexplained old cases definitely have what it takes to become a crime drama series”, Tittelbach said. “At least one film a year should be conceivable with this exquisite concept.” Silke Bodenbender is convincing as the protagonist, “in which the attractive exterior and the inner constitution are in an exciting tension”. Sebastian Hülk also likes "as a researcher, initially in the background, as a calm couch potato and tome of files, later as spiritual support and driving force in solving the case".
In the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , Kai Spanke dealt with the film and said, "Films that deal with supposedly unsolvable tasks" are "extremely attractive" and drew a comparison between the Impossible Missions Force around Tom Cruise and this film. On German television, “Silke Bodenbender alias Lotte Jäger, special investigator for unsolved cases, is going to the Brandenburg pampas to solve a murder that apparently cannot be solved”. Spanke said that “local TV films” would “like to orientate themselves, but mostly without the necessary expertise, to Anglo-American customs” and rely on “gimmicks” “whose refinement is below the measurable limit”. If mischief threatened Frau Jäger, rain clouds would cover the sun. In Terrence Malick see "something sublime out," Franziska Meletzky think rather "the weather". Spanke gave other examples. How to put anxiety states in the picture is celebrated here like from the "film education course. Less would have been much more. ”As“ great as the temptation ”may be, one should“ not exhaust all technical possibilities just because one can ”. In fact, “the gimmicks used are pushed into the foreground so massively that the plot disintegrates into the mosaic of a collection of ideas”.
Markus Schu commented on the television magazine Prisma and praised: “The investigator's shattered psyche comes to the fore in 'Lotte Jäger und die Tote im Dorf', which has resulted in a remarkable and stylistically idiosyncratic thriller Opinion that the format “at the premiere” was attested “starting difficulties”, but that the series is now flourishing “under Franziska Meletzky's accomplished direction”. Unlike Kai Spanke, Schu praised the staging freedoms, irritating black screens, bird's-eye views, time manipulation and the “mental states of the inspector”, which were “audiovisually balanced” and allowed us “a look into her soul, her thinking”. The “script, again from Rolf Basedow's pen”, was “not too innovative, but exciting and surprising”. In addition, "the script with a terrific resolution" scores points. In conclusion it said: “Stylistically highly idiosyncratic and unconventional, dramaturgically tried and tested and functional, the new case by Lotte Jäger is about to enrich the crime scene with a really successful new format. It will be interesting to see how the ZDF series will continue in the future. "
Julian Miller was of the opinion on the sitequotemeter.de : “A commissioner with anxiety disorders determines herself through a conspiratorially concealed hillbilly village. That could be told more profoundly than with “Lotte Jäger”… ”Miller referred to novels by Thomas Bernhard and his pointed descriptions of the German-speaking province. In this film, on the other hand, there is none of that. Displeasure was also expressed about the inconsistent drawing of the main character, “who has to meander incessantly between exaggerated bureaucratic strength, flaunted shrewdness and emotional helplessness, which does not result in a multi-layered, coherent, but a strangely contradictory picture” written around supposed audience expectations “seem. The quota meter reached a value of 40 percent and came to the conclusion: "That is why 'Lotte Jäger und die Tote im Dorf' does not go beyond the level of a dumb fellow-knobel thriller."
Elmar Krekeler, on the other hand, praised the world : “A murder, a village, a cop, a wall of silence - actually as always in a German country thriller. The fact that the television series 'Lotte Jäger' is great is because it was made great. ”The film is“ absolutely essential ”because it is“ a prime example ”of“ what can happen to old stories ”“ if they an old master retell [e]. And when German television thinks about what it can be different and more beautiful than the highly acclaimed British one. ”The inventor of the films, Rolf Basedow, is the screenplay god at Dominik Graf's side . Lotte Jäger is "something like the psychologically unstable successor of the bum investigator Bella Block ". Krekeler continued: “Silke Bodenbender is Lotte Jäger . Nobody can let the walking on psychic borderlines become so face, nobody can look like that, nobody is such a perfect facial shape-changer. "At the end of his assessment Krekeler wished:" Only the television's longing that this series should go on like the other Ostländer classic from ZDF, the ' Spreewaldkrimi ' . So potentially infinite. "
Tilmann P. Gangloff wrote for the Internet portal of the Protestant Church evangelisch.de "worth seeing" is the second film, "this time Franziska Meletzky staged again from a script by the multiple Grimme Prize winner Rolf Basedow", "mainly because of the main character", who found “the perfect cast for this role” in Silke Bodenbender. In the "second 'Lotte Jäger" film ", the embedding of the flashbacks is particularly artistic". The “acoustic level” is also very “effective”. [...] “Mysterious short insertions” would give the film “a touch of twin peaks ”. Last but not least, the “atmosphere of mutual distrust that settled over the village after the murder” was “well hit”. Gangloff also praised the "remarkable design by Bella Halben". The film “shows that everyone involved had a very special thriller in mind”.
Web links
- Lotte hunters and the dead in the village in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Lotte Jäger and the dead in the village at crew united
- Lotte Jäger and the dead woman in the village on Fernsehserien.de
- Exclusive excerpt from "Lotte Jäger and the dead in the village" on the goldenekamera.de website (including 15 film images)
- Lotte Jäger and the dead in the village see page zdf.de (video, available until February 2, 2020)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Lotte Jäger and the dead in the village at crew united
- ↑ Silke Bodenbender in an interview. “I choose roles that are relevant” see prisma.de, interview from August 28, 2018.
- ↑ Lotte Jäger and the dead girl / and the dead girl in the village Fig. DVD case (in the picture Sebastian Hülk, Silke Bodenbender)
- ^ A b Rainer Tittelbach : Series “Lotte Jäger and the Dead in the Village”. Silke Bodenbender, Hülk, Basedow, Meletzky. Nothing is the same as it used to be see page tittelbach.tv. Retrieved November 26, 2019.
- ↑ Lotte Jäger and the dead in the village cf. tvspielfilm.de. Retrieved November 26, 2019.
- ↑ Kai Spanke: ZDF crime thriller “Lotte Jäger”. Where are you going to Hollywood please? In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, September 3, 2018. Retrieved November 26, 2019.
- ↑ Markus Schu: Lotte Jäger: Between delusion and reality see page prisma.de. Retrieved November 26, 2019.
- ↑ Julian Miller: "Lotte Jäger and the dead in the village" see page quotenmeter.de, September 2, 2018. Accessed on November 26, 2019.
- ↑ Elmar Krekeler: ZDF super series. In the east, everything can actually be trusted. In: Welt, September 3, 2018. Accessed November 26, 2019.
- ↑ Tilmann P. Gangloff : TV tip: “Lotte Jäger and the dead in the village” (ZDF) see page evangelisch.de, September 3, 2018. Accessed November 26, 2019.
