“The Secret Lives of Our Children: A Thriller About the Generation Gap in ‘Tatort’ from the Black Forest”

“Tatort” from the Black Forest
Our children, the unknown beings: A thriller about the generation gap

The Freiburg “Tatort” investigators Tobler and Berg delve into the world of young people about the murder of a young man: They – half do-gooders, half turbo-capitalists – have moved miles away from the reality of their parents’ lives.

What’s the matter?

A youth is pulled dead from the water. In order to understand what happened, detectives Friedemann Berg (Hans-Jochen Wagner) and Franziska Tobler (Eva Löbau) investigate the murder victim’s environment – and come across his friends Benno and Zoe: the two half-siblings live in a seemingly happy blended family. But as a result of the murder, more and more things come to light that the children kept secret from their parents. And the parents themselves are not always honest with each other. In the course of their investigation, Tobler and Berg defoliate the drama of a family falling apart.

Why is the “The Secret Lives of Our Children” case worth it?

That parents don’t really know what their children are up to and what really moves them – that has always been the case. But in each generation this generation gap manifests itself in a different way. On the one hand, the young people portrayed in this “crime scene” are driven by great concern for the future of the planet. On the other hand, they are very open to the new varieties of digital capitalism: they willingly feed the platforms of the tech giants and believe in getting rich quickly with cryptocurrencies or as content creators.

This environment will be as alien to many viewers as it is to the patchwork parents, who at some point ask themselves: “What do we really know about our children?” Apparently far too little. The creators of this “crime scene” (book: Astrid Ströher, director: Kai Wessel) have taken up a topic that has received too little attention with the gap that is increasing due to digital media and have also implemented it in an aesthetically appealing way. For example in the form of split screens that show the lives of the children and parents in parallel over and over again. It soon becomes clear: it’s not just the youngsters who have secrets: the adults aren’t any better.

What bothers?

If you want to find a hair in the soup, then this: The young people are presented in their worries (climate catastrophe) and interests (Youtube, cryptocurrency) quite one-dimensionally and clichéd. Dialogues like this seem stilted: “The hype is totally draining. We can’t afford to fail.” Even if this is the crime thriller genre: A little more character differentiation would certainly not have hurt.

The commissioners?

The central motifs of this episode can also be found in the private lives of the two investigators: Franziska Tobler receives a visit from her niece, who ran away from home because she would rather make dangerous videos for her YouTube channel than study for school. Your colleague Berg, on the other hand, is confronted with cryptocurrency in his circle of acquaintances – a world that remains alien to the conservative official.

Turn on or off?

This case makes you think: Be sure to tune in!

Inspectors Tobler and Berg also investigated these cases: