“Police call 110”: You’re hanging over the abyss and thinking of a toaster

Sagain a farewell in Munich “Polizeiruf 110”. Another fictional cop character that we will miss. That was the case with Matthias Brandt, who played Commissioner Hanns von Meuffels as a gentle melancholic in the “Polizeiruf” from Munich from 2011 to 2018. He is remembered, for example, with the chamber play “And forgive us our guilt”, which led him into a profound religious debate with Karl Markovics, or with the unimaginable mass murder case in which the perpetrator raged in a retirement home (“night service”), not to be forgotten the plays directed by Christian Petzold.

Six unique films

In 2019, Verena Altenberger began her service as Elisabeth “Bessie” Eyckhoff in “Polizeiruf”, and she is now calling it a day after six films – six films that are unique: idiosyncratic, meandering, told with associative logic. Trusting the spoken word in the interrogation chamber play “Until Midnight” or tricky in “Frau Schrödinger’s Cat”. After four years with “Bessie” Eyckhoff, first as a patrol officer, then as a commissioner, a new phase begins with the BR “Polizeiruf”. Johanna Wokalek becomes Stephan Zinner’s new colleague as Dennis Eden, who is still investigating at her side in “Paranoia”, Verena Altenberger’s finale, and who remains.

“Paranoia” is a stalking thriller, a conspiracy case and a reflection on perceptions. Who or what to trust? Oneself? What happens when you live as you always have and reality doesn’t want to conform at all? Eyckhoff and Eden deal with constructions of reality and oddities that may even be important in a global political context – with regard to secret service machinations and hidden torture prisons.

It begins with a rescue mission. Called to an emergency, rescue workers Sarah Kant (Marta Kizyma) and Carlo Melchior (Timocin Ziegler) rush to see Kerstin Schnabel (Maria Lüthi), who was selling “smart” lawnmowers and agricultural drones for an international garden equipment company in the Middle East. Melchior falls on the stairs, sees Kant kneeling next to the seriously injured woman with a bloody knife. When driving to the emergency room, they are diverted to another hospital by the control center. There the Syrian Dr. Matar (Michele Cuciuffo). The patient is gone the next morning. It never existed, judging by the clinical data.

Is this paranoia or real?

Kant feels persecuted, especially since she is in possession of a VHS cassette that apparently shows a man being tortured and questioned by Western services. However, Eyckhoff and Eden first investigate the murder of Umut Kanoglu (Aslan Aslan) – a man who hung up all the doors at home. Both cases intersect, a third is added. Carlo Melchior is murdered. The camera, Eyckhoff’s gaze, touches a blood-splattered toaster. The witness Sarah Kant appears to her as an insecure cantonist. But, as the policewoman discusses with her colleague, is someone who is said to be paranoid and who has attracted attention through stalking generally not to be taken seriously? What if the diagnosis of insanity is correct and the threat is still real?

“Paranoia” plays this through. The action is top-heavy, the dialogues and the design are by no means, but palpable. The Swiss director Tobias Ineichen is responsible for this, just like the author Martin Maurer, who used the first script by Claus Cornelius Fischer, who died of Corona in December 2020, as a template.

Here and there “paranoia” is actually quite funny. For example, when Eyckhoff flirts with the allegedly sensitive robot lawn mower in the intelligence production company and he gets embarrassed. Or when Eyckhoff almost falls over scaffolding during a wild chase, hangs over the abyss and all that goes through her head is the image of an upside-down toaster with slices of bread falling out (camera Michael Saxer). She somehow imagined the near-death experience to be more grandiose, she says to Eden. The whole life passes by in a matter of seconds, as the saying goes.

The scene ends shamefully: the commissioners have to be rescued by the fire brigade. The fact that expectations are greater than reality runs through “Paranoia” like an Ariadne thread. For inspector Eyckhoff, the fact that another life is conceivable alongside the usual one is also the way out of the labyrinth. In the end you can think of anything. For Eyckhoff, who is retiring, “bumps” on the way are what changes our direction. We will miss her, Verena Altenberger’s self-confident policewoman, who lives in cloud cuckoo land, leaves room for others, without being overbearing. She takes her secret with her.

Police call 110: Paranoia runs on Sunday at 8.15 p.m. in the first.