Hanover crime scene: Against the melting of connections in the head

Perhaps you can imagine dementia like solving a crime, only backwards: the connections are gradually lost until only clues remain. Author and director Alexander Adolph may have thought something like this when he wrote “Tatort” for this week.

By chance, LKA investigator Matthias Vogel (Andreas Lust) comes across evidence in a dementia village that could reopen an ancient series of murders. A serial killer from the 1980s who was never caught: Does he live here in the home?

The problem: Commissioner Vogel himself has early-stage dementia. He misplaces important things, sometimes forgets where he is, and above all: he sometimes sees connections where there are none. And so no one believes his hot lead.

Almost nobody. The exception is Inspector Charlotte Lindholm (Maria Furtwängler), who crosses Inspector Vogel's path because of a completely different matter and who allows herself to be carried away by the charismatic profiler, right into his obsession. Lindholm soon has to ask herself whether she is getting lost in something. But in the dementia village there are at least as many inconsistencies as in Vogel's wild theory.

It didn't turn into a themed film. I recommend not to expect a realistic depiction of a dementia village, nor to hope for information on how to deal with the diagnosis. Most of the characters are surreally exaggerated, like in a Hercule Poirot case or in “Murder is their hobby”. Rather, Vogel's dementia provides the framework for exploring themes such as obsession, loss, masculinity, life's work, care and growing old.

“Tatort – The King in Yellow” is a touching, unsettling, exciting, humorous, human crime piece to start the season.

It is carried primarily by Andreas Lust, who turns the bird suffering from dementia into a multi-faceted figure. Lust plays the guest role as someone who struggles with all his strength against the melting of the connections in his head. He creates an endearing and tragicomic quirkiness and perhaps creates a blueprint for future leading roles with mental limitations in old age.

Above all, this film turns the crime genre on its head and shows that sometimes solving a crime is a bit like dementia, only backwards. You line up evidence and hope that sooner or later you will regain control over the connections.