Dead in the forest

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Movie
Original title Dead in the forest
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 2013
length 90 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Florian Baxmeyer
script Matthias Tuchmann
Stefanie Veith
production Falk Baumgarten
music Steffen Kaltschmid
Fabian Römer
camera Peter Krause
cut Achim Seidel
occupation

Tot im Wald is a German television film from 2013 by Florian Baxmeyer , which was only broadcast on free TV in 2019 . It is the continuation of the crime film Hannah Mangold & Lucy Palm with Anja Kling and Britta Hammelstein in the leading roles.

action

Hannah Mangold was the head of the commissariat in Potsdam, but after she was severely traumatized by her last police assignment and was not fit for duty, her position had to be filled elsewhere due to her long illness-related absence. In addition to these problems, there are also private ones, because Mangold's ex-husband wants, justified by the mental confusion of his ex-wife, that sole custody of their daughter Laura can be obtained. Since she has not yet completely controlled her drug and alcohol consumption, Hannah Mangold's chances are not very good.

In “her” department, a missing person case of her colleague Lucy Palm, which has been present for months, is currently puzzling. Your supervisor Habermann is of the opinion, however, that they are understaffed anyway and have no time for it now. So Palm sets out on his own initiative and drives down the highway on which the missing couple was last on their way. As this road leads through a forest, she can see strong skid marks on the asphalt and she also finds some other abnormalities. The next day she sets out again with Mangold and while she is asking two forest workers about the residence of the forest owner Arthur Meckenstock, Mangold discovers a little boy who is walking alone in the forest with a German shepherd. When she arrived at Meckenstock, his son-in-law Harald Kurtz welcomed her very coldly. It quickly becomes clear that the run-down mansion doesn't seem to be under a lucky star. Kurtz's father-in-law has been bedridden since a stroke, his wife shot herself in the kitchen a few months ago and his little son walks through the property in a traumatized and wordless manner. Mangold also discovers the German shepherd in a kennel and suddenly has new hallucinations under these stressful conditions . She only talks about it to her therapist, who says that the subconscious is telling her something. Mangold used this event to face the situation and applied to Kurtz as a nurse for Arthur Meckenstock. Since Kurtz doesn't have a good relationship with his father-in-law, he doesn't really care who cares for the man and is amazed that anyone can be found who wants to work here in the wilderness. Mangold learns from the postman that Kurtz and his wife had loved each other, but "King Arthur" would not have liked the son-in-law. Shortly afterwards, Mangold has another hallucination and sees Meckenstock's daughter playing with her son Kilian in the kitchen - where she died. But the boy is just coming towards her from a completely different direction, but seems to be playing a strange game, because he is wearing a white respirator against fine dust particles that is enriched with the scent of peppermint.

In the meantime, while reconstructing the travel route of the missing, Palm came across a country inn that is very close to the Meckenstock forest. Since you meet the two forest workers here again, the relationship between the two of them and the landlady and their entire behavior seems rather strange, she does research on the police computer. There are no entries against Stiller and Imhoff here, but she can very quickly assign them to a militant group called “The Special Forces Command”, to which Kurtz also belongs. All three worked in Afghanistan for a number of years . Immediately after Kurtz came home from being wounded, not only did his wife shoot herself, but the couple has been reported missing since that day. Stiller and Imhoff have been working for him as forest workers since their dishonorable discharge. When she wants to ask Kurtz about this, she unexpectedly meets Mangold, about whose unauthorized undercover action she knew nothing. Accordingly, Palm later confronts her, annoyed. Mangold explains to her that her new hallucinations are a cry for help from the boy and that she wants to help him. Whether it is also related to the current case is not their motivation. In addition, she is on sick leave and can decide for herself what to do.

Palm is getting more and more into their case and is analyzing other missing persons in the region. In doing so, she comes across a total of six missing people who have not yet been found and who were all recently near the Meckenstock forest. On another "excursion" into this forest, she discovers a burned-out wrecked car, but is also attacked by two masked men, whom she can only escape with difficulty. so Stiller and Imhoff are interrogated, but because of the masking, one cannot prove their attack on Palm. So Palm tries to spread distrust between the couple through Stiller's wife, who runs the country inn. She presents Inge Stiller photos of all missing persons she has identified and tries to awaken her conscience with other small actions.

Mangold, meanwhile, also gets to know Kurtz from his violent side and whenever Kilian runs away from his father and the unbearable situation in the house, he takes refuge with his sheepdog in his kennel. By chance, Mangold finds a laboratory report, according to which it is impossible that Kurtz is Kilian's biological father. When Kurtz finds out that Mangold is actually a police officer, her stay in Meckenstock's house is over and her plan to help the boy presumably has failed. But now the situation comes to a head when Kilian runs into the forest and his father, drunk, runs after him. Mangold also immediately goes looking for the boy. However, she uses the shepherd dog to help, who leads her unerringly to Kilian's hiding place. Here she can hardly believe her eyes, because the boy is sitting in an old building basement and reading fairy tales to someone: It's the half-decayed corpses that Stiller and Imhoff have piled up here. She informs Palm by phone of her discovery, which, with the help of her colleagues, arrests the two after they had tried to escape.

Mangold is meanwhile forcibly detained by Kurtz in the manor house. Since she already knows that he is not Kilian's father, he now also reveals to her that his father-in-law was Kilian's father and that this is also the reason why his wife shot herself. In his desperation, he now sets the house on fire, killing himself and Arthur Meckenstock.

Mangold hands Kilian over to his new foster parents, who have already taken in his German shepherd, and the commissioner hopes that Kilian will also get used to here and be able to overcome his trauma.

background

Tot im Wald was produced as a follow-up episode of the television film Hannah Mangold & Lucy Palm and was filmed from February 14th to March 15th 2012 under the working title Im Rudel in Berlin and the surrounding area.

A series began seven years ago, but it never got beyond the second film, Dead in the Forest . This continuation of the first part was broadcast in 2019 with some delay by SAT1 on free TV . As a result, supporting actors such as Jella Haase or Fahri Yardim have already become stars themselves and, from today's perspective, the implementation of the film would very likely have looked different than it was usual seven years ago.

Reviews

Tilmann P. Gangloff from Tittelbach.tv wrote appreciatively: "Unlike the first episode, however, 'Tot im Wald' (Ninety Minute Film) no longer relies on the contrast between the two title characters embodied by Anja Kling and Britta Hammelstein" and they have "Only a few common scenes." "The delightful atmosphere of the scene, filmed by cameraman Peter Joachim Krause, and the interesting music by Fabian Römer and Steffen Kaltschmid are too little to make a gripping film out of 'Dead in the Forest'." Conclusion: “Not a very exciting crime thriller; but the film scores with a fairytale atmosphere. "

Marie-Luise Braun at noz.de also found the crime thriller "exaggerated" and said: "A strange story that even the good actors, including Jella Haase as Hannah's daughter Laura and Fahri Yardim as investigator Aktan Gül, cannot save."

Julian Miller fromquotemeter.de wrote: Tot im Wald "sums up the venue, as the less than imaginative title puts it in a nutshell, [...] as gloomy and inhospitable." But "Instead of showing the gloomy abysses in all their diversity, They remain a mere backdrop for a generic crime thriller, which is also being expanded to include silly police auxiliary construction sites: A few thousand euros have been stolen from the evidence room, and the department head wants Little Red Riding Hood and her helper from the basement to forbid walks in the forest because the district is with others Cases has enough to do anyway: unnecessary narrative ballast. "

Only the critics of the TV magazine TV Spielfilm gave this episode a “thumbs up”. They judged: “Two lady cops at their best. Exciting!"

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Age rating at sat1.de, accessed on January 13, 2020.
  2. ↑ Dead in the forest at crew united . Retrieved January 13, 2020.
  3. ^ A b Tilmann P. Gangloff : Kling, Hammelstein, Zimmler, Veith / Tuchmann, Baxmeyer. Taken from the basement , accessed on Tittelbach.tv , on January 13, 2020.
  4. ↑ Excessive crime thriller: 'Tot im Wald' with Anja Kling on Sat.1 at noz.de , accessed on January 13, 2020.
  5. ↑ Julian Miller: criticism of the film at Quotenmeter.de , accessed on 13 January 2020th
  6. ↑ A journey into human abysses. Film review at tvspielfilm.de , accessed on January 13, 2020.