Crime scene: Witches dance
| Episode of the series Tatort | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Witch dance |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| Production company |
NDR |
| length | 89 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| classification | Episode 529 ( List ) |
| First broadcast | April 13, 2003 on Das Erste |
| Rod | |
| Director | René Heisig |
| script | Markus Stromiedel |
| production |
Doris J. Heinze Studio Hamburg film production |
| music |
Frank Wulff Stefan Wulff Hinrich Dageför |
| camera | Hanno Lentz |
| cut | Claudia Wontorra |
| occupation | |
| |
Hexentanz is a television film from the crime series Tatort by ARD and ORF . The film was produced by Norddeutscher Rundfunk under the direction of René Heisig and first broadcast on German television on April 13, 2003. It is the 529th crime scene episode and the second case of Chief Detective Charlotte Lindholm , special investigator at the Lower Saxony State Criminal Police Office .
action
Werner Hellmann, a legally convicted murderer who is said to have killed his wife Anna on the basis of circumstantial evidence and testimony, appears immediately after his release from prison with the people who put him behind bars thirteen years ago. This obviously makes them nervous and a short time later he is found dead in his apartment himself. Chief Detective Charlotte Lindholm is supposed to take over the case and is supported on site by the village police officer Sören Freese.
During her investigations, the inspector soon notices that something is wrong with the place, which is the nearby village of Meyenburg , and that the residents have a secret. The witch cult is a topic again and again and Lindholm can also discover mysterious symbols. When Kirsten Hellmann, the murdered man's daughter, shows up in the village, the people seem to be terrified of the young woman. After her mother was murdered and her father went to prison, she grew up with foster parents. Although she had broken off contact with her father, she now wanted to speak to him and initially stayed in her parents' house.
Lindholm learns from a fellow inmate that Werner Hellmann loved his wife more than anything and that he wanted to take revenge on the real perpetrators after his release. The Commissioner is also investigating in this direction, because she believes it is entirely possible that Hellmann was innocent. Since he was considered jealous and a bloody sweater of his wife was found on him, this, together with the statements of some villagers, was taken as sufficient evidence. However, the murder weapon: a stone with which Anna Hellmann was killed, was never found.
More and more Lindholm comes across the mentally confused Erika Hinrichs, who draws witch and devil signs in various places in the village. Anna Hellmann was very revealing at the time and was decried as a witch. When her daughter appears, who looks very much like her mother, the village seems to catch up with the past. The inspector found out that Anna Hellmann had turned the heads of most of the men in the village and was therefore not very popular with the wives. The village veterinarian Thorsten Grote in particular was very fond of the "witch".
Kirsten Hellmann realized through her father's old letters, which she had never read before, that he could not be her mother's murderer, and so she explains to the mourning community that she will not rest until her parents' real murderer is found. In Lindholm's opinion, this puts her in great danger and so she pays special attention to Kirsten Hellmann. Unexpectedly, one of the villagers admits that the confused Erika Hinrichs was Anna Hellmann's murderer. At that time the women of the community got together to give the "witch" a lesson. Therefore they would have tied her to a tree and Erika Hinrichs would have been the last to come back from there. In contrast, there is the testimony of Dieter Grote, who hates his father and accuses him of the crime. As proof, he wants to hide the stone with which the victim was killed and which he found and picked up at the time with his father so that he can be clearly convicted. However, he is caught by his father and both get into an argument. Lindholm joins because she was following a trail that leads to Henrike Grote. She has no valid alibi for the period of Hellmann's murder and so it turns out that she killed Anna Hellmann out of jealousy. When Werner Hellmann turned up unexpectedly and threatened to convict her, she had no other advice than to get him out of the way.
reception
Audience rating
The film was seen by 9.14 million viewers when it first aired on April 13, 2003, corresponding to a market share of 26.8 percent.
criticism
TV Spielfilm pointed the thumbs up and said: "The crime thriller lives from eerily beautiful local color." Conclusion: "Provincial thriller of the atmospheric kind."
The critic Rainer Tittelbach comes to the conclusion: “Especially when it comes to the mood, this 'crime scene', which begins as a village drama and grows into a family tragedy, is extraordinary. Lots of unfamiliar faces add to the credibility. Ingo Naujoks as a platonically loving friend of the heroine provides some irony and a wink. And Maria Furtwängler convinces as a cool but natural blonde who can be snippy, direct and Columbo-like friendly and insistent that it is a pleasure. "
Lars-Christian Daniels from wiewardertatort judges this crime scene as “worth seeing [s] mediocrity”: “The implausible sketches of the overly narrow-minded villagers, from which Lindholm's first film 'Lastrumer Mixture' suffered, also robs 'Hexentanz' much of its authenticity. [...] It is simply difficult to believe the crime story on a permanent basis. The search for the murderer [...] is [...] on feet of clay from the start. "
Web links
- Crime scene: witches' dance in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Summary of the plot of Hexentanz on the ARD website
- Witches dance at the crime scene fund
- Hexentanz at Tatort-Fans.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ Hexentanz at tatort-fundus.de, accessed on September 21, 2015.
- ↑ TV crime thriller. Kripo-Lady Lindholm probes villagers. at tvspielfilm.de, accessed on September 21, 2015.
- ↑ Maria Furtwängler in a strong village thriller: melancholy landscape, guilty souls at tittelbach.tv , accessed on September 21, 2015.
- ↑ Tatort: Hexentanz at wiewardertatort.blogspot.de, accessed on September 21, 2015.
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previous episode March 30, 2003: Die more beautifully |
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next episode April 21, 2003: The Whipping Boy |