2023-09-10 11:31:51
Anyone who sees Godehard Giese’s face emerging from the darkness next to them on a dark and stormy night knows that something is fundamentally wrong in their life. Nobody is able to give human icy coldness such an enchanting, cynical and at the same time incredibly attractive face.
Godehard Giese is certainly the greatest of all the German actors who one just wants to throw acting awards at and who far too rarely receive one.
All you have to do is look at the scene in which his face emerges from the darkness of a night in the Wetterau in Frankfurt’s new “crime scene”. We don’t know who he is, that remains a mystery for a long time. His car stops next to a police car.
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He is – his name is Radomski, we learn later, and he is also a police officer – not alone in the car. “You’re out,” he asks the police officer, whose name we know is Laby, who has a pregnant girlfriend and is now, for whatever reason, standing in the middle of a field in the middle of nowhere in Hesse.
Laby says it’s no longer possible. Then not much is said (not much is said in this case anyway). It doesn’t have to. Godehard Giese’s lips curl. His eyebrow twitches a little. Rarely before has a death sentence been passed in a “crime scene” with such minimal means. One becomes horrified of Giese and of the Germany that Radomski represents.
Before we continue with the eulogy for Godehard Giese, a few operating instructions and possible trigger warnings for this night-black investigation by Frankfurt detectives Janecke and Brix.
Scene from the new Frankfurt “Tatort”
Source: HR/U5 Film Production/Daniel Dorn
Anyone who has developed an aversion to television crime dramas in which right-wing networks are exposed (such as in the case of Corinna Harfouch’s entry as Mark Waschke’s new interview companion in Berlin’s “Tatort”) should perhaps watch an episode of “Bergdoktor”. Anyone who vaguely remembers that there was once a very funny song by the Rodgau Monotones that was dripping with Hessian self-irony called “The Hessians are coming” and that also haunts this episode should be reminded of the “Tatort” title “Pity . Too late” don’t let that fool you.
There is nothing ironic here. And nothing is funny. But it is slow, very slow and – you have to take precautions for this – dark, night-black. There is hardly any light. It’s a starless night in the Wetterau. It is Dark Germany. A winter fairy tale in summer.
“Where are the colleagues with lamps?” someone calls out. Whoever sits in the living room wants to shout and demand more light. So: darken the living room, increase the contrast and brightness on the television. It won’t help much, nor should it.
There will be executions
“Mercy. Too late” wants to scare the near future of the German present like a ghost train ride through the abyss. And does it too. “This time next year there will be executions,” says one person there. And he means it.
“Mercy. Too Late” tells the story of a conspiracy against Germany from the outskirts of a low mountain range in Hesse. Based on the investigations against the Nazi chat group network in the Offenbach police and those against the racist activities of the self-proclaimed “NSU 2.0”, which also had its epicenter in the Hessian police.
Bastian Günther, who wrote and directed the screenplay, described his night piece as a western. Because it’s about men, because it’s about nature and how a lonely law enforcement officer (Paul Brix) tries to resist the overwhelming power of a perverted system.
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The case is as follows: Simon Laby has disappeared, he was probably the victim of a right-wing femicide. Executions have already taken place this year. There is a witness, his name is Schilling, he is an undercover agent for the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution. He was the second man in Radomski’s car. An unreliable witness. They drive through the night, field by field. All men. Brix in the back. Because he no longer has a driver’s license. None of the fields seem to be the right ones in this turnip summer. Schilling always finds something that bothers him.
It’s a moribund chamber play, in the cathedral of no light, in the cars. Out in the world, Janecke finds the forest house where Laby always met with his friends. A prepper temple. With weapons, food, with Nazi propaganda.
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Conversations are held that make you feel hatred for the circumstances and helplessness. It remains diffuse. Intangible. It’s slow. Hardly anyone will like it. It is great.
And ends in a kind of dance of death. Then it became light over the fields of the Wetterau. A youth that is not at all clairvoyant is popping the corks like there is no tomorrow. Like they don’t care about tomorrow. Godehard Giese’s Cheshire Cat won. I think of Germany at night.
#Tatort #Frankfurt #conspiracy #Germany