Vienna Blood - The last séance

Episode of the series Vienna Blood
title	The last seance
Original title	The Last Seance
Country of production	United Kingdom , Austria
original language	English
Production ; company	Endor Productions, ; MR Film
length	90 minutes
classification	Episode 1 ( list )
First broadcast	November 18, 2019 on BBC Two
German-language ; first broadcast	December 20, 2019 on ORF 2
Rod
Director	Robert Dornhelm
script	Stephen Thompson
production	Stephen Thompson, ; Oliver Auspitz , ; Andreas Kamm
music	Roman Kariolou
camera	Andreas Thalhammer , ; Xiaosu Han
cut	Peter Christelis
occupation
	Matthew Beard : Max Liebermann; Juergen Maurer : Oskar Rheinhardt; Josef Ellers : Sergeant Haussman; Alma Hasun : Charlotte Löwenstein; Erni Mangold : Concierge; Simon Hatzl : Police Commissioner Strasser; Harald Windisch : Professor Matthias; Amelia Bullmore : Rachel Liebermann; Conleth Hill : Mendel Liebermann; Raphael von Bargen : Inspector von Bülow; Luise von Finckh : Clara Weiss; Rainer Wöss : Hans Brückmüller; Jessica De Gouw : Amelia Lydgate; Roland Koch : Heinrich Hölderlein; Ursula Strauss : Juno Hölderlein; Oliver Stokowski : Professor Gruner; Karin Lischka : Pink viewfinder; Christoph Luser : Otto Braun; Petra Morzé : Cosima von Rath; Maria Bill : Isolde Sedlmair; Gerhard Liebmann : Karl Überhorst; Charlene McKenna : Leah Liebermann; Heidelinde Pfaffenbichler : Prostitutes;

Vienna Blood - The Last Séance is a British - Austrian television film in the crime series Vienna Blood from 2019 by Robert Dornhelm with Matthew Beard as doctor and psychoanalyst Max Liebermann and Juergen Maurer as Vienna detective Oskar Rheinhardt. The script by Stephen Thompson is based on the Liebermann crime novels by Frank Tallis . The first broadcast took place on November 18, 2019 on BBC Two , the first broadcast on ORF 2 took place on December 20, 2019 in two-channel sound . In Germany the film is to be shown on ZDF .

action

The Viennese detective Oskar Rheinhardt investigated the death of a woman in Vienna in 1906, whose identity was initially unknown, in Leopoldstadt . A suicide note suggests a suicide, a weapon cannot be found, the corpse is in a room that is locked from the inside. During his investigations, Rheinhardt receives from the doctor and psychoanalyst Dr. Max Liebermann support who, initially to his displeasure, accompanies him as part of a research project. The victim was killed by a shot in the heart, there is an entry wound on the corpse, but no exit wound, the bullet is missing. At first there are neither witnesses nor suspects.

According to reports in the weekly newspaper The Interesting Journal about the case, Inspector von Bülow offers Commissioner Strasser to take over the case. Strasser urges Rheinhardt for results. Liebermann analyzes the suicide note in which she says, “God forgives me. I did the forbidden. He will banish me to hell. ”Wrote and found out that she initially wanted to write“ us ”instead of“ me ”, but had corrected this. Rheinhardt then orders an autopsy of the victim's uterus. This shows that the victim was pregnant. The child's father, who wanted to cover up his relationship with the victim, would come into question as the perpetrator.

While searching for the victim's identity, they learned from the seamstress Rosa Sucher that the medium was Charlotte Löwenstein. Sucher attended a séance with her . Another participant was Otto Braun, he had put them on to Löwenstein. Sucher and Braun had met at the cemetery. Rheinhardt assumes that Otto Braun could be the perpetrator. Rheinhardt learns from a prostitute that Braun works as an illusionist . After a chase over the roofs of Vienna and through the Vienna underground, Rheinhardt arrests Braun.

Liebermann learns from Braun that Charlotte's parents died when she was very young. Braun was looking for an actress for his séances, Braun and Löwenstein knew each other from the theater. Braun denies the act. Liebermann believes him because the perpetrator probably committed the murder to protect his reputation, but Braun has no reputation to lose. Braun is released and later found dead. In his accommodation you will find the numbers of the tombstones of the recently deceased on a slip of paper, presumably for the search of new customers for his séances.

As a result, they seek out the relatives of these deceased, such as Heinrich and Juno Hölderlein and Karl Überhorst. Juno Hölderlein and Karl Überhorst were customers of Charlotte Löwenstein. Rheinhardt suspects Heinrich Hölderlein of the murder of Löwenstein, a man of standing who cares about his reputation and therefore fits into the profile he is looking for. Liebermann also notices that Rheinhardt knows his way around the cemetery well. Rheinhardt tells him that his little daughter has died and that his wife couldn't cope with it.

Cosima von Rath had introduced Löwenstein into high society. She should organize a séance for Rheinhardt. The session is chaired by “Madame De Rougemont”, bourgeois Isolde Sedlmair, participants include Heinrich and Juno Hölderlein, Rosa Sucher and Karl Überhorst. During the session, Juno collapses, the session is canceled. Liebermann finds out that Löwenstein had installed a camera in her room. Presumably she wanted to blackmail her killer with the recordings.

After Mayor Karl Lueger exerts pressure on Commissioner Strasser, he pulls Rheinhardt off the case, but Rheinhardt continues to investigate. He finds out that the perpetrator used an older weapon and that human tissue was probably used as ammunition, so there was no exit wound. Special pliers, as used in pathology , were used to close the room and turn the key from the outside . Liebermann finds out that the anti-Semite Hans Brückmüller, who wants to become mayor instead of Lueger, was Charlotte's lover and the father of her unborn child. He forced Charlotte to write the suicide note before shooting her. A fight between Liebermann and Brückmüller takes place in a gondola of the Vienna Ferris wheel . After Liebermann threatens to crash, Rheinhardt shoots Brückmüller, who is finally arrested, seriously injured.

production

The shooting of The Last Séance took place from October 15 to November 16, 2018 in Vienna and the surrounding area. The shooting locations included the Vienna Giant Ferris Wheel , the Hotel Sacher , the Steinhof Church , the Vienna Central Cemetery and the Vienna Konzerthaus .

The production was supported by the Vienna Film Fund , the Austrian TV Fund and the Province of Lower Austria , and the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation and ZDF were involved .

The series was produced by the Austrian MR Film and the British Endor Productions, in which Red Arrow Studios are involved. Thomas Oláh was responsible for the costume design, Bertram Reiter for the equipment and Michaela Payer for the make-up.

The screenplay was written by the Englishman Stephen Thompson , who wrote the screenplays for three episodes of the award-winning English television series Sherlock . This led to detailed comparisons of the two series in the English press after publication.

The film was shot in English ; the German-speaking actors synchronized themselves for the German-language version.

reception

Reviews

The Guardian headlined its detailed film review with: "So much like Sherlock it seems like a spoof". The reviewer concludes that the story is all in all quite absurd, but still entertaining. The fact that it is dragging on comes from the tangle of subplots and the many topics that have been touched on: anti-Semitism, electroshock therapy , profiling , psychoanalysis, séances , felt politics and economics, etc. The reviewer has problems with the role women play in Film is intended: Either they are used to effectively stage physical stimuli, or they are either hysterical or needy. But since Beard and Maurer played excellent, she would forgive these shortcomings.

Anna-Maria Wallner found in the daily Die Presse that the comparison with the British television series Sherlock was limping, at least for The Last Séance . The inspector and the doctor would be too foreign to each other for that, if Liebermann had too few psychic abilities, the case would be much less light-footed. The two didn't seem like a strange couple. Only the playful music and the camera work, especially in the first half of the film, are reminiscent of the British detective series.

Helmut Atteneder described the film in the Oberösterreichische Nachrichten as a “successful hit” and “as a didactic piece, as a benchmark for this genre shown inflationary on TV.” Dornhelm was a masterly director of this social report from Vienna at the turn of the 20th century. In addition to film music and camera work, Atteneder praised the actors, in particular, alongside Juergen Maurer and Matthew Beard, he also highlighted the appearance of Maria Bill: "Great cinema was the difference between worldviews and social classes conveyed in two vocal contributions."