2024-10-10 11:29:00
Chief investigator Gabriel Bach of the State Criminal Police, played by Jürgen Vogel, took his seat in the large hall of the Elbphilharmonie. Before the symphony concert there were threats of attack because the Jewish conductor had had a young Muslim girl play the first violin.
Bach listens to his instincts when during the concert he follows a bearded terrorist suspect into the toilet, who soon leaves his cubicle again, but without flushing. For Bach it is clear: either the man wielded a weapon or initiated the planned attack in another way.
When the suspect returns to the hall and has an unusually violent coughing fit as he walks to his seat, the senior inspector believes this to be a sign of accomplices and takes action. He fires a shot into the spotlight under the ceiling, causing panic in the hall. The audience flees headlessly. In the chaos, Bach manages to overpower the bearded man.
The figure of the energetic and mysterious lead investigator is at the center of the narrative of a new ARD series entitled “Informant – Fear over the City”. In six episodes and almost four and a half exciting hours, the multi-part series by author and director Matthias Glasner recounts the long-awaited attack and the search for the possible perpetrators. Furthermore, the complex piece addresses broader issues – from structural problems in state and federal criminal investigation offices, as well as in federal intelligence, to systemic issues – such as the lack of integration of migrants in Germany and the growing racism in society.
Actor Ivar Wafaei plays the lead role of the informant Raza Shaheen, the eldest son of an Afghan family from Hamburg – and in his screen debut he conjures up a fascinating and complex character on screen. Bach places it on Afghan drug lords who are said to have links to terrorists. The detective and his informant’s missions take them all over Hamburg.
Matthias Glasner is at home on Elba. And so in “Informant” he also draws a skillful portrait of the Hanseatic city – in all its contradictions between picturesque places on the banks of the Elbe and dark corners in socially disadvantaged areas such as Wilhelmsburg. The criminal methods and lack of imagination of the law enforcement are shown, who constantly threaten the informant with deportation of his girlfriend, even though she speaks fluent German and has a job, so is well integrated.
Raza’s father had to make ends meet as a taxi driver in Hamburg, and he was a professor in Kabul, but his diplomas are not recognized in this country. Since his wife died of cancer, he has stopped going to the mosque, but is invited to do so by his Muslim neighbors. The complaints that German laws have raised for decades are becoming increasingly apparent because, as Glasner said in an interview at the Elbphilharmonie, “politicians much prefer to think about simple solutions like deportations rather than the other end of the chain, possible integration and their conditions”.
The terrorist threat motif is “just a metaphor in the film for paranoia,” Glasner says, “because there’s not a single terrorist in the film. It’s about showing how the fear of attack leads to attack.” But the series also increases the paranoia it talks about, at least when looking at the concert hall in the harbor. The Elbphilharmonie resisted the filming for a long time. But after the cultural authorities and film finance supported the persistent director, the director finally accepted “Once we got approval, everyone here in the house supported us 100%,” says Glasner.
Terrorists don’t follow movies
Besides, he doesn’t believe that terrorists strike where everyone expects them, says the director. After all, that was “the stupidest thing they could have done.” Furthermore, “the Elbphilharmonie significantly improved its security concept,” says Glasner, “and it was also important for the director to do this before the release of the film, so that it was not a reaction “The fictitious attack plan can be misunderstood.”
Jürgen Vogel does not believe “that terrorists follow the suggestions of films”. But of course “in principle, any place where people gather could be a target. That’s why you can’t really protect yourself from terror. No matter what we do, no matter who we put in place, no matter who governs, this type of terror is always possible.”
That’s why the new ARD series opens your eyes to many problems, but not as a tranquilizer. The premiere of “Informant” took place at the invitation of NDR on the anniversary of the fictional attack in the small hall of the Elbphilharmonie. In the next room the famous violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter played works by Mozart and Schubert together with the pianist Lambert Orkis. After leaving the building, many visitors stood on the escalator in the so-called tube leading to the building with an uneasy feeling in their stomach.
Following the old adage that “even paranoids have enemies,” there are many suspected terrorists, as in Glasner’s original, BBC series “The Informants.” This is why tension remains high. Ultimately it’s also about “the mistrust, the fear, the racism, which makes you think of every bearded person on the subway: oh God, maybe… which obviously increased again because of the attacker in Solingen,” he says the director. .
Jürgen Vogel recalls that terror was no longer an important public issue when the shooting began. “London, Madrid, Breitscheidplatz in Berlin, all this happened a long time ago, but then, in the middle of filming, the Hamas attack came on October 7.” the Supernova Sukkot Gathering music festival and kibbutzim in Israel.
“Then,” says Glasner, “the action thriller series with a political backdrop suddenly became a political series with action thriller elements for the constellation with the Jewish orchestra conductor and the Muslim violinist, the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra by Daniel Barenboim and Edward.” These were the sponsors where Israeli and Arab musicians make music together, Glasner says.
After the attacks it was also a burden for the set, recalls the director, because the crew included Jews, Afghans and Syrians. Glasner: “And then suddenly everyone had to have an attitude, even though maybe they didn’t want to because they lived their lives away from the Middle East.”
Trojan horse action
This is exactly what the film tells about life as a migrant in Germany, about prejudices from the point of view of those affected. “He really fell in love” with the informant’s Afghan family, Glasner says. In addition to Reza and his father (Majid Bakthiari), the family also includes his younger brother Nazir (Ali Reza Amahdi) and Raza’s girlfriend Sadia (Bayan Layla) as roommates. Bakthiari (“Rheingold”) plays like a rock in the undertow of young talent.
In the series, he always saw the action and crime elements as a Trojan horse for content that “otherwise only a few viewers watch”, explains the director. So he moved far away from the British model, which is mostly about police work, and turned the six episodes into “a four-and-a-half-hour film that is now shown in six sections and does not follow a serial dramaturgy.” ”, says the director, and this is the darkest thing he has ever done. Indeed, as an author, Glasner delves into both the social breadth and depth of his characters, all of whom fail – almost all of them, as it turns out in the end with a cynical twist.
Jürgen Vogel crosses the deepest abysses in the role of the investigator Gabriel Bach. A former undercover police officer, he returns to the scene of right-wing extremism through a chance encounter and from then on lives torn between his bourgeois life with his wife (Claudia Michelsen) and almost grown-up daughter and his undercover existence.
Friends with Nazi tattoos know Bach by the code name Charlie. He is in a relationship with singer Marion (Katharina Schlothauer) and is prone to violent outbursts.
Jürgen Vogel stages three believable and completely different faces: that of a softie at home, of a criminal with a Nazi tattoo and of a tendentiously choleric detective who annoys his colleagues but invests feelings in his informants – even if he himself believes that this is highly unprofessional while preaching to his fellow BKA Holly Valentin.
Actress Elisa Schlott transforms her into a controlled, opaque blonde with great career ambitions. Bach’s superior, manipulative LKA boss Rose Kuhlenkampf (mothering great: Gabriela Maria Schmeide), repeatedly has to smooth things over when the two fall out.
Vogel is enthusiastic about the role of investigator Bach. His friend Glasner wrote it especially for him. The two have worked together on and off since the 1990s, making films such as “Sexy Sadie” (1996), “Free Will” (2006) and “Grace” (2012). Main role: Jürgen Vogel.
“Jürgen’s possibilities,” says Glasner, “but also his depth were to a large extent reflected in this figure. That’s why I think it wasn’t that difficult for him to play.” Vogel smiles: “The character was well drawn. All I really had to do was follow her.
Kleist undercover
In the role of the investigator Bach, he guides the informant and quotes for him Kleist’s “Puppet Theatre”, one of the sacred texts of the performing arts. Vogel likes to embrace Kleist’s wisdom: “Working undercover is similar to acting. When you immerse yourself in a world like this, you have to be convincing. You have to immerse yourself in this, and this has a lot to do with you, you need a certain type of person who can take it.
There is a limit, says Vogel, “you can’t play with it: your anger is your anger. Your sadness is your sadness. Your willingness to use violence is your willingness to use violence.”
The latter was not a little in demand during filming, the series contains some violent fights, the stunts that accompanied them were filmed by Vogel himself as a “craftsman of naturalism” (Bird about Bird. The psychological abysses are so deep that Henrik Ibsen). he would have liked it.
For Glasner, sometimes one sentence is enough to expound an entire scene. The conductor of the Elbphilharmonie stands out for his choice of vulgar words, with Glasner saying: “Of course it was not addressed to the actual conductor. I don’t even know him, but those in leadership positions in the cultural sector often have an ease that oscillates between arrogance and bird of paradise.”
A good example of Glasner’s artistic talent as an author is Edgar Braun, the head of operations of the BKA, played by Nico Holonics. He is the only character who does not struggle with internal contradictions among doubtful and deliberative colleagues.
When it comes to police roles, he’s interested in “how people get squeezed into systems, because systems work against each other instead of with each other,” Glasner says. But with Braun he wanted to “write a real asshole” and was happy with the result. After all, there are often people like that in leadership positions, even among producers or TV bosses, and you think: “Damn, they’re making so much mess because they’re so good at gaming the system – and things like that are scary.” damn out of my mind.
For Bach it is a “real liberation to be able to give him a hard time”, says Vogel happily, and he also shows sympathy for the role. According to the actor, he has “great understanding” for Bach’s betrayal with his wife, “because that’s exactly how it is: we always want to be hornier than we are and more correct than we feel. I think it’s great because the characters maybe can’t help themselves, maybe it comes out of them like an illness.
Incidentally, this search for honesty, for depth, was at the beginning of the collaboration with Glasner, says Vogel, “because you are only human with all your mistakes”.
“Informante”: from 11 October in the Arte and ARD media libraries; on ARD linear television on October 16 (parts 1-3) and 17 (parts 3-6), both at 8.15pm
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