2 - Krimi Quo Vadis: Literary and Televised Trends in the German Crime Genre

Summary

The opening sequence to a recent episode of a German television crime series presents the audience with a panning shot of a bustling market square. The camera captures small and large booths, tents, and cars scattered about the square. Tourists and flâneurs, intermingled with women in headscarves, populate the location. Superimposed text informs the viewer, “Marrakesch, Marokko,” followed by a tracking shot into the arcades of the city’s souks, or outdoor marketplaces. The camera follows a young man in his mid-to-late twenties, moving deeper into the heart of the city. His demeanor indicates that he fears detection. After repeatedly checking to see if someone has been following him, he enters an Internet café and starts a video call with a man in Arabic, only to switch to German a few sentences into the conversation. When asked about a certain wedding, the young man responds, “Ja, ich hab die Hochzeit gesehen. Ich weiß jetzt, wie ‘ne Hochzeit geht” (Yes, I saw the wedding. I know how a wedding works now). Then he adds more aggressively, “Wir werden unser Fest feiern” (We will have our celebration). Shortly thereafter, three men enter the Internet café. Flustered by their presence, the young man leaves the café toward the restrooms, located across a courtyard in the back of the building and he enters one of the three stalls. The men who have followed him identify themselves as policemen and start searching the stalls. They see a picture of a young girl on the floor of one of the stalls, and when they open the stall door, there is a young man holding a hand grenade, which explodes only seconds later. After a long shot of the destroyed building, the film cuts to the next scene.

Described here is the first scene of the Tatort episode “Der Weg ins Paradies,” which premiered in December 2011. The popular Tatort television series began its run in 1970 on the public ARD network (Arbeitsgemeinschaft der öffentlich-rechtlichen Rundfunkanstalten der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Consortium of public broadcasting institutions of the Federal Republic of Germany). Similar to the Regiokrimi, Tatort has also consistently emphasized regional specificities and local customs, with teams of detectives based in various German cities such as Hamburg, Cologne, Munich, Leipzig, Münster, and Stuttgart.