Police call 110: Live to death

Episode of the series Polizeiruf 110
Original title	Live to death
Country of production	Germany
original language	German
Production company	Polyphon Film- und Fernseh GmbH on behalf of the NDR
length	88 minutes
classification	Episode 199 ( List )
First broadcast	March 15, 1998 on Das Erste
Rod
Director	Manfred Stelzer
script	Gert C. Möbius Manfred Stelzer
music	Lutz Kerschowski
camera	Michael Wiesweg
cut	Inge Bohmann
occupation
Kurt Böwe : Kurt Groth Uwe Steimle : Jens Hinrichs Ingo Naujoks : Karl Hauser Armin Rohde : Harry Malz Anna van Hoorn : Namaka Dorothea Gädeke : Doris Andreas Hoppe : Head of the SEK Julia Jäger : Senta Scharfenberg Karl Kranzkowski : Mr. Schonert HH Müller : Kriminalrat Dr. Stuber Michael Ojake : Namaka's father Hanna Petkoff : Anna Schonert Arno Reckers : Farmer Horst Rehberg : Jens Dammann Victor Schefé : film student Irm Hermann : Policewoman Peter Möbius : Prof. Dr. Borner Till Wiedemann : Sven

Live in den Tod is a German crime film by Manfred Stelzer from 1998. The television film was released as the 199th episode of the Polizeiruf 110 film series .

action

Harry Malz wants to make big money as a sensational journalist. So far he has shadowed cheating men and recorded the meeting of man, woman and lover on video, but such scenes are now uninteresting for the new, sensational audience. Senta Scharfenberg, who buys the relevant films, makes it clear to Harry that he has to offer more. Shortly afterwards, the asylum seekers' home in Schwerin is on fire and Harry is there live with the camera, as he initiated the arson. He also saves a man from Rwanda in front of the camera. It was only on this day that he was able to embrace his little daughter Namaka, who traveled to Germany as a stowaway on a freighter. The father is hospitalized and Namaka stays with Harry. He doesn't know what to do with the girl and leaves her with his friend Karl Hauser. Karl is a loser, has no job and lives in a trailer. He makes money with small-scale dictates.

Chief Detective Jens Hinrichs is charged with investigating the arson attack on the asylum seekers' home. His colleague Groth with a heart condition is kept out of the case, but interferes anyway out of personal interest. Harry can meanwhile sell the recordings of the fire to Senta at a profit, but does not manage to take further pictures of the same quality, although he does not shrink from an interview with a seriously injured suicide shortly after the jump.

The air in Schwerin is getting too tight for Karl. When his motorhome is confiscated due to a lack of a MOT and taxes that have never been paid, he has had enough. In front of Harry, he announces that he wants to rob a bank. With the money he plans to emigrate. Harry sees his big chance and organizes a big live broadcast of the robbery unnoticed by Karl. Karl captured only 5,000 in bank robbery D-Mark . Harry makes his escape more difficult to get better pictures. He also puts Namaka in his car. When Hinrichs and Groth and other police officers circle Karl in police vehicles on the open road, Karl appears to take Namaka hostage. He explains the scenery to her as a joke. Harry, in turn, is there shortly afterwards with a camera and offers himself as an intermediary. He goes to Karl in the caravan and from now on films the events, not telling Karl that every scene is broadcast live. The caravan can continue to travel via a telephone connection to Hinrichs, with the investigators following at some distance.

Harry dramatizes what is happening during the broadcast and conducts interviews with Karl, who is becoming increasingly irritable. He drives around haphazardly, confesses his love to a pharmacist in Schwerin and is rejected in front of the camera, and finally stops at an inn. The inn is surrounded and the innkeepers will soon be able to follow the pictures that Harry is shooting live on TV in the kitchen. Because he wasn't being served, Karl went to the kitchen and saw that everything was being broadcast live. He asks Harry into the kitchen and shoots him in front of the camera. The live broadcast is canceled. In front of the inn, Karl lets Namaka go because Groth offers himself to be an exchange hostage. The journey ends in a place where Karl spent parts of his childhood. His brother gets into the trailer and reports that the whole family has been watching everything in front of the television. Both make music while the motorhome is being moved. The next time Karl opens the door of the car, he is shot several times and dies. Another camera team is on site and tapes his death live. Hinrichs is also shown pulling the shocked Groth out of the mobile home. TV pictures show how Hinrichs tries to fend off the camera.

production

Live in den Tod was filmed from March 1997 under the working title Die Medienqualle in Schwerin and the surrounding area and in the Rostock port . One of the locations was the pharmacy on the Schelfmarkt in the Schelfstadt . The costumes of the film created Heidi Plätz that Filmbauten come from Peter Bausch . The film had its television premiere on March 15, 1998 in the first . The audience participation was 12.6 percent.

It was the 199th episode of the Polizeiruf 110 film series . The inspectors Hinrichs and Groth investigated in their 10th case.

criticism

The daily criticized the script: "'Live in den Tod' the unsuspecting TV fan apparently has to thank a crew of makers who are even more stupid than the characters they send into the race." Criticism and media criticism should be "halfway stay realistic ”in order to be taken seriously. The Süddeutsche Zeitung also wrote that everything in the film was “excessively exaggerated”: “[N] of course, television studios don't look that stylish, of course the unscrupulous are not so unscrupulous. But it works". The really weak in the film are the investigators, who show that “loser types can obviously end up with the police”. “The hunt for 'news' becomes independent: unstoppable and exciting”, wrote the TV Spielfilm , and summed up: “Accurate media scolding filmed great!” “A brilliant Armin Rohde as a self-appointed reporter and his buddy (Ingo Naujoks) all play the rest Mime colleagues on the wall, ”said Der Spiegel .

Web links

• Police 110: Live to death in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Police call 110: Live to death at filmportal.de
• Polizeiruf 110: Live to death on Das Erste.de

Individual evidence

1. ^ Peter Hoff: Police call 110. Films, facts, cases . Das Neue Berlin, Berlin 2001, p. 208.
2. ↑ Anke Westphal: The hardest thing ever . In: Die Tageszeitung , March 14, 1998, p. 17.
3. ↑ Karin Steinberger: If you don't work, you go to television . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , March 14, 1998, p. 29.
4. ^ Polizeiruf 110: Live in den Tod on tvspielfilm.de
5. ↑ Television - Sunday . In: Der Spiegel , No. 11, 1998, p. 244.

previous episode February 22, 1998: Dead Sure

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next episode May 24, 1998: Little Angel