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»Tatort« actresses Paula Kober, Tinka Fürst: Christmas women on the verge of a nervous breakdown

Photo: Martin Valentin Menke / WDR

The scenario:

One of them is dragging the other's packages. After the fatal knife attack on a delivery man, Ballauf (Klaus J. Behrendt) and Schenk (Dietmar Bär) infiltrate their colleague Förster (Tinka Fürst) into a delivery service that has to cope with a drastically increased volume of parcels in the not at all Christian pre-Christmas season. Does the pressure on the precarious workers have anything to do with the murder?

The highlight:

The mulled wine glows, the bones of the parcel carriers crack. This Advent »crime scene« tries to compare the pre-Christmas joy of the consumer society with the wear and tear of those people who keep this consumer society running for low wages. This narrative construction works quite well over stretches – but in the end there is the inevitable contemplative stop at the mulled wine stand.

The picture:

Santas (and women) on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Dressed in cheap plastic costumes from the Far East, the employees of the delivery service have to heave the bulkiest goods through narrow stairwells.

The Dialogue:

Two young parcel carriers have dragged a rowing machine up to the apartment of an elderly gentleman in a bathrobe. The packaging is slightly damaged.

Customer: "I have to report this now. Or we'll find a solution." (seductively opens the bathrobe so that his fine-ribbed underpants are visible)

Parcel carrier One conspiratorially to parcel carrier Two: "Can you do half an hour for me? I mean, I'm not going to get another chance like that anytime soon. Or do you want to?"

Parcel carrier Two laughs out loud.

Customer: "There's a complaint!"

Parcel carrier One: "Yes, yes, I have one too. To your mother."

The song:

»Mambo« by Herbert Grönemeyer . Runs on the car radio while the parcel workers drive through rain-soaked Cologne. Herbie's manic mambo shouting sets the basic motif of this film: "I've been doing my rounds for hours / Here."

The rating:

5 out of 10 points. Between the Christmas market and the delivery madness: The people responsible for this Advent "crime scene" could have packaged their unhappy news a little more evilly.

The analysis:

Read more here!

»Crime Scene: The Other's Last«, Sunday, 20.15 p.m., Das Erste