Mystery crime novel in the first
Soaked in blood: This is how dark the new ARD series “Oderbruch” is
A mountain of corpses and animal carcasses is found in a field near the small village of Krewlow im Oderbruch. The former police officer Maggie (Karoline Schuch), detective inspector Roland Voit (Felix Kramer, left) and the Polish detective Stanislaw Zajak (Lucas Gregorowicz) investigate this monstrous series of murders.
© Syrreal Dogs GmbH/CBS Studios/Stefan Erhard/Marcel Wisdom / ARD Degeto
Late at night, the mystery thriller “Oderbruch” takes us to one of the loneliest areas in Germany. Eerie incidents are increasing in a village on the border with Poland. “Polizeiruf” star Lucas Gregorowicz and Karoline Schuch are investigating.
The fog from the nearby Oder wafts menacingly over the Brandenburg fields. Two men are on their way to go fishing early in the morning when they are captivated by something strange: it is a huge pile of mutilated corpses and animal carcasses in the middle of the field. The police have to solve monstrous murders in the fictional Krewlow. The 300-inhabitant village is located in the most sparsely populated region in Germany. With the mystery crime series “Oderbruch” shows the first late Friday evening at 10:20 p.m. dark and somewhat bloody entertainment.
The close relationships across the German-Polish border play a major role in “Oderbruch”. Because whatever raged in the forgotten village near the border: it also devoured Polish victims. Lucas Gregorowicz (“Polizeiruf 110”) takes on the role of the pedantic investigator Stanislaw Zajak, who comes to Germany from Poland. The LKA Brandenburg also takes action: Police officer Roland Voit (Felix Kramer) is sent from the German side to talk to the poor residents of the town. He grew up in the village.
“Oderbruch”: Karoline Schuch as her childhood sweetheart
Back home, Voit meets his childhood sweetheart and former police officer Maggie – convincingly played by Karoline Schuch. The investigation is accompanied by flashbacks and memories that are always bathed in a golden light. Sometimes supernatural forces seem to be at work. In the eight episodes, “Oderbruch” oscillates between family drama and crime series. Maggie’s younger and missing brother Kai, played by Julius Gause, plays a central role.
You can also see the well-rehearsed team in the series: producer duo Christian Alvart and Siegfried Kamml as well as director Adolfo J. Kolmerer already worked together on “Sløborn” (ZDF). “Oderbruch” plays with clichés – some scary, some mystical. Soon the small village is no longer big enough for the plot, side lines lead to Poland and even Romanian Transylvania.
The Oder runs like a thread of sadness through the episodes – be it allusions to the huge Oder flood of 1997 or the bloody great battle towards the end of the Second World War that raged around the so-called Seelow Heights. Soldiers’ corpses can still be found here to this day – because “the ground in the Oderbruch is soaked with blood,” as it says in the series.