A reflection on the “Polizeiruf 110” by Torsten Kohlschein
At first glance, one is inclined to rip this Magdeburg “police call” to the ground. But take it easy. The eponymous ten-year-old Ronny (Johann Barnstorf) does not have a nice life. He is in the children’s home because the authorities believe that his mother, Sabine Hartwig (Ceci Chuh), who was addicted to drugs, is overwhelmed with his upbringing. Even his birthday, when the boy visits her, his stepsister and the mother’s new partner (Oskar Bökelmann), seems rather improvised and ends in a scandal with the quasi-stepfather. After that, the boy disappears without a trace. Where is he? Is he still alive? First indications point to a crime.
What comes down to chief inspector Doreen Brasch (Claudia Michaelsen) working through all conceivable suspects practically single-handedly. Ronny’s mother herself, her emotionally cold partner, who openly regards Ronny as a troublemaker, the conspicuously trying and empathetic educator Matthias Precht (Thomas Schubert), who moved to Styria. But it can’t be all of them, there would still be too much time left for that at the end of the thriller. Finally, it turns out that Gordon (Valentin Oppermann), the son of the director of the children’s home, Gabi Kleinschmidt (Maja Schöne), abused the boy and left him tied up somewhere in the nature near the Elbe, where you can literally find him at the last second. But why did he do that?
This MDR “Polizeiruf” by Jan Braren, directed by Barbara Ott, raises more questions than it answers. How does the home director’s son, who is undoubtedly mentally disturbed, come into contact with one of her protégés? What drives him? What exactly did he do to the boy in the first place, and what prompted him to do it? The film leaves all these details in the dark. In this way, the author and director are trying to present a piece of reality, as well as with the cheerless, seemingly discolored scenes of the Anhalt province. That succeeds. How often does it happen in the realities of the police and judiciary that no question remains unanswered when the file cover of a criminal case and the cell door close behind the convicted criminal? There are simply questions to which there is no answer.
In this respect, “Ronny” leaves the viewer unusually unsatisfied, because the thriller throws them back on themselves. But at the same time it shows how our society ticks when many people are under suspicion. How distrust practically sows itself. And he puts two mothers opposite each other. Here’s Ronny’s, who would like to have her son back, but hasn’t gotten custody (yet) – maybe it would be better to be at home with a stepfather like that. As the single mother of Gordon, who completely eluded her while taking care of 20 other children. The case always draws tension to the last from the uncertainty about Ronny’s fate. One should not underestimate the “police call 110” as a second-class “crime scene”. He’s in a class of his own. (tk)