Whe mist hangs over the village in a silvery veil, nestled on the hillside in the valley below. The winter is going. The forest is black and silent. Time stops. We’re far to the west. And a western might start like this.
In a dark valley. Surrounded by dark tann. Could be nice if it weren’t for the sheep lying there whose throats were cut. A wolf sneaks around. Large posters hang in the village against the wolf and for the sheep. And smaller ones against a wolf in human form that nobody wants in their neighborhood.
A girl is confirmed. His mother’s skeleton is recovered in the root system. She disappeared 15 years ago. The man many believe to be the killer is back from prison.
A crime fiction primal scene. A western story. The sheriffs come into the village and nobody wants to say anything, at least not the truth. The Freiburg “crime scene” loves primeval scenes and the landscape from whose primeval ground it derives its cases.
Among the regional crime films that a “crime scene” is supposed to be, the Sunday evening murder and manslaughter stories from the Black Forest are the most down-to-earth, the most down-to-earth, the ones where the crumb sticks most intensively under the soles.
Which is not insignificantly related to the fact that Eva Löbau and Hans-Jochen Wagner, who are Freiburg’s investigators Franziska Tobler and Friedemann Berg, do not have to change their dialect significantly. Löbau comes from Waiblingen, Wagner from Tübingen.
Inspector Berg (Hans-Jochen Wagner) has doubts about the statements made by Tröndle (Aurel Matthei)
What: SWR/Benoit Linder
Nicole Armbruster, who wrote the screenplay for her new case, which is idyllically called “Down in the Valley” but is not idyllic, grew up not far away in the Ortenau district. You don’t notice that Julia Langhof, who directed the film, is from Berlin. You should offer her the honorary citizenship of Menzenschwand, the 550 soul spa town in the Upper Black Forest was one of the central locations for “Down in the Valley”.
Back to the sheriffs. Tobler and Berg are back after 15 years, when they left more or less without having achieved anything. Must – “Down in the valley” is a classic cold case story – try again, where they had failed in vain – to reconstruct the last evening of Rosa Winterfeld. She had given birth to a child – she was fifteen and very beautiful.
Supposedly received by the village landlord’s son. Brought to her aunt in Berlin by Rosa’s parents after the birth. On her last evening, Rosa was on her way to her child. She got no help. Not from the strangely distant father (who is suspicious because the great actor Cornelius Obonja plays him), not from the mother (no less great: Inka Friedrich), whose face is flooded with memories that she has trouble keeping in check can.
Then Rosa was gone. Now all the witnesses are back. In the village pub where Rosa’s child’s father is still patronized by his father. In the hamlet on the slope, of which Tobler and Berg do not have the most pleasant memories. Because of the wall of silence at the time, because of the permanently drunk junk (Aurel Manthei, who is one of the great underestimated people on German television), who became violent towards Tobler.
Interrogation in the village inn: Commissioners Berg (Hans-Jochen Wagner) and Tobler (Eva Löbau) with Elif (Canan Samadi)
What: SWR/Benoit Linder
Most stayed in Menzenschwand, the world is narrow in the black forest. Elif (Canan Samadi), Rosa’s best friend, had gotten the furthest away, wanted to get away the most, now wants to go the most determined again after the interrogation. She is waiting for the bus. Then she lies dead on the outskirts of the village.
Nicole Armbruster cleverly folded her case. “Down in the valley” tells Rosa’s story on two time levels. The perspectives are constantly changing, what happened then and what is happening now is mirrored from at least two perspectives.
Rosa’s parents: Josef (Cornelius Obonya) and Meike (Inka Friedrich) Winterfeld
What: SWR/Benoit Linder
Memories contradict each other, stories are told. It will never be quick. Doesn’t have to. “Down in the valley” is a spectacularly softly played psychological drama. You end up sitting there on the sofa. And it’s incredibly clammy. The tourism association of the Upper Black Forest will not be so happy. Whereby…