Occasionally he lays crime scene its genre chains and is amalgamated with other formats, the legendary Murot adventure “Born in Pain” was told almost ten years ago in the style of a Shakespearean drama. And last Christmas, the Munich-based Francis Lightmyer and Detective Constable Ivor Partridge investigated in costume clothes after Agatha Christie, but relied too much on the effect of their disguise and mask. Because the story wasn’t nearly as impressive as the inspectors’ beards.
With the episode “Gold” the SWR is trying a crime thriller variation of Richard Wagner’s “Ring” cycle. Director Esther Wenger and her authors Fred Breinersdorfer and Katja Röder retell the Nibelungen saga. The crime scene as an opera, and then also in Ludwigshafen, with the experienced Lena Odenthal? Can that go well? It actually goes quite well, which also has something to do with the fact that the piece does not pride itself on its own artistic standards, it remains a crime thriller, even if a fabulous one.
The bank branch manager Boris Wolter has disappeared, finds indicate that he may have found the treasure of the Nibelung. During the investigations, the world of legends and everyday investigators are repeatedly brought into contact with each other, Wellgunde, Woglinde and Floßhilde meet Lena and Johanna, and in this way even the much-criticised classic investigators’ questions begin to shimmer a little: “Why does Hagen von Tronje actually have the Rheingold Sunk back into the river at the end of the story?”, Chief Inspector Johanna Stern (Lisa Bitter) asks the director of the Nibelungen Museum in Worms. He whispers: “The treasure is cursed.”
In Worms, the city of the Nibelungs, one learns, one knows how to enjoy and to curse
Heino Ferch, narrator and important character in the play, plays this Dr. Albrecht Dürr appropriately tight-lipped, André Eisermann, internationally known from Kaspar Hauser and sleeping brother, is a regionally rooted hotel owner with a provincial voice. Eisermann comes from Worms, where people know how to enjoy and curse: “Die hott de Deiwel lost in a gallop.” From his mouth: a poem.
“Gold” is an experiment, you have to get involved and also want to get involved, and if you expect crime thriller to be crime thriller, that won’t mean much to you. But even those will recognize that the scenery is impressive in any case and also the way in which Robert Schulte-Hemming and Jens Langbein have condensed elements from Wagner’s operas into their very own crime film music.
Made with love, this one crime scene.
The first, Sunday, 8:15 p.m.
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