Crime scene: Martinsfeuer

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Episode of the series Tatort
Original title Martin's fire
Country of production Germany
original language German
Production
company		 WDR
length 86 minutes
classification Episode 429 ( List )
First broadcast December 5, 1999 on Das Erste
Rod
Director Niki Stein
script Hans Frank
production Jan Hinter
music Jacki Engelken
Ulrik Spies
camera Arthur W. Ahrweiler
cut Corina Dietz
occupation

Martinsfeuer is a television film from the crime series Tatort . The film, produced by Westdeutscher Rundfunk and directed by Niki Stein , was broadcast on December 5, 1999 on ARD's first program. It is the 10th case of the Cologne investigative team Ballauf and Schenk and the 429th crime scene episode.

action

Four-year-old Michael is missing in a suburb of Cologne. He had only just played with a group of older children when he doesn't return from their field trip. After some searching, a shepherd finds him dead on a disused military area where the children last played (illegally).

The victim has been suffocated and has carved marks on the skin that puzzles Commissioners Ballauf and Schenk. You suspect a psychopath as the perpetrator, who marks his victim to mark it as "his property". Since the inspectors are hoping for tips from the children Marion and Mirco, who were last with the boy, they receive support from the psychologist Vera Furthwängler. First of all, the children draw their attention to Lessmann, who is mentally suspicious, and who is then taken into police custody. But also the convicted Leon Dewitt, who among other things has a relationship with the mother of the twelve-year-old Marion Antes, cannot be excluded as a perpetrator. Both deny, however, anything to do with the death of the boy. After the investigators discover Mirco Pranskat's drawing on which he has apparently drawn the dead Michael lying on the meadow, they take him for a witness. Worried that the perpetrator might know, the boy is placed under police protection. The upcoming Martin’s parade, in which all children of the settlement will take part, will be a challenge. Despite all security measures, five-year-old Daniel disappears during the move.

Ballauf finds a serious indication that the children themselves have something to do with Michael's death. So he learns from Mirco that he had observed Marion, who is considered to be the "leader" within the group of settlement children, as she had put her hand on Michael, who was lying on the ground, and made signs on his stomach with a razor blade. Lately they often play in a dream world beyond . There where you are “always well looked after”, as Mirco called it. Due to the social conditions, the children are often left to their own devices and have deficits in the care of their parents. According to Mirco, the children will be picked up by aliens and Marion would take over the ceremony. So the commissioners are sure that the missing Daniel was kidnapped by Marion. Since Daniel is now being searched for by helicopter, Ballauf and Schenk manage to find both children in time. According to Marion's remarks, there is no doubt that she suffocated Michael.

background

Martinsfeuer was produced by Colonia Media on behalf of WDR . The shooting took place in 1999 in Cologne and Blankenheim under the working title Almeidaweg, St. Martin .

reception

Audience ratings

When it was first broadcast on December 5, 1999, the episode Martinsfeuer was seen by 8.24 million viewers in Germany, corresponding to a market share of 23.07 percent.

Reviews

Rainer Tittelbach from tittelbach.tv appreciates: “A 'crime scene' that begins like a thriller. Greetings from 'Halloween'. Then Ballauf and Schenk take the viewer by the hand as they walk through the social lowlands. This shows the other side of 'Germany 2000' - no future in the suburban settlement. The focus is on those who are in the shadows, families from the 'lower classes', people who have not learned to rebel against their fate. "

The critics of TV Spielfilm think: "Oppressively realistic milieu drawing."

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Location and audience rating at fundus.de, accessed on March 29, 2016.
  2. ^ Rainer Tittelbach: Niki Stein's "Tatort" thriller, which develops into a grippingly dark social drama. Film review at tittelbach.tv, accessed on March 29, 2016.
  3. ↑ TV thriller. A child murderer is going on in a suburb of Cologne. Short review at tvspielfilm.de, accessed on March 29, 2016.
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December 12, 1999: Deadly Labyrinth