How the Swiss “crime scene” showed a mirror not only for the rich

Money doesn’t make you so happy after all: at the second “Tatort: ​​Schoggilänke” in Zurich, investigators investigated the death of a chocolate maker. Facing the abysses of the rich, a powerful mirror approached the audience.

In addition to the spectacular peaks, the beautiful valleys and the economic boom, Switzerland also has many chasms to offer. At least that is how the tenor of the new episodes of Zurich’s “Tatort” seems to be. While the premiere episode focused on social protests and police violence in the 1980s, the investigative duo’s second case did not shed a good light on certain realities in the Alpine republic.

After all, the thriller, once again starring director Viviane Andereggen, was dedicated to a Swiss specialty that is popular around the world: chocolate. The “Tatort: ​​Schoggilänke” was in no way suitable for local tourist advertising: Isabelle Grandjean (Anna Pieri Zuercher) and Tessa Ott (Carol Schuler) investigated the case of a chocolate maker who was murdered and shed light on him disadvantage of federal prosperity.

What was it about?

Hans-Konrad Chevalier, businessman and director of a chocolate factory, was found murdered on his luxurious property in Zürichberg. Where the Swiss upper class savored the chocolate side of life that gave him its name, the boss led a rather depressing existence. The researchers discovered that he had to live his homosexuality away from family and high society. A suicide was out of the question: he was eventually brutally beaten to death and shot.

The focus was on daughter and successor Claire (Elisa Plüss), who made her father’s will disappear, as well as her mother Mathilde Chevalier (Sibylle Brunner), who was also power hungry. As if that wasn’t enough, a young “lover” (Csémy Balazs) of the head of the company made a relationship likely, and then there was the mystery man at the hotel. At least the motives for the crime and the family relationships turned out to be a bit different …

What was it really about?

On the one hand, on the abysses of wealthy families: The grandmother of the supposed “granddaughter” maintained the fact that she was actually her mother and, therefore, the “father”, half brother of her “daughter”. Complex relationships that only arose to preserve the legacy of the venerable chocolate factory. The fact that the old woman rejected her homosexual son and preferred to take the family hierarchy into her own hands should have secretly led some viewers to joy over his death.

At first it also seemed that homophobia had also haunted the murderer (Levente Molnar). He claimed that he could not bear his brother prostituting himself for wealthy gay men (“He wanted to redeem him”). In the end, the situation became even more complicated: Chevalier finally wanted to die, did not trust himself and asked Andras Lakatos (Levente Molnar) for the “favor” for which he had financed a rescue operation. The fact that the deceased’s franc banknotes were finally “redistributed” in the air of Zurich referred to the great theme of the director: the contradictions of capitalist societies. Switzerland and its wealth provide a gigantic projection surface.

What grievances did the police thriller draw attention to?

In quite a few, and that in both the main story and the secondary threads. It was about family empires, class society, homophobia, bought bodies, and migration. The housekeeper Esmeralda Rivera (Isabelle Stoffel) became a possible witness who may have observed the crime in her boss’s villa. As an alleged “Sans-Papier”, an undocumented migrant, she was reluctant to speak to the police.

“A widespread problem, especially in Zürichberg”, the crime thriller addressed the outlawing of immigration and also provided useful information: “Compulsory education is valued more than a violation of the Aliens Act.” In his social criticism, the “crime scene” went so far as to address the public directly …

Why did the main characters speak directly to the audience?

There were daring and experimental scenes that could still be a talking point: several times the lead actresses spoke directly to the camera to address the audience. “You are not prepared for something like this in Zurich,” Grandjean wrote of a homeless man he saw lying under the mailboxes in his home. She did nothing: “I went to work,” she admitted, and asked, “What would you have done?”

Elsewhere, Ott confronted audiences with the privileges of children of wealthy families, while prosecutor Anita Wegenast (Rachel Braunschweig) smugly commented on upper-class charity events. As in a critical move, the new Zurich ‘Tatort’ was not only a mirror for the Swiss.

Did the researchers join this time?

The rich police thriller was predestined for this: as in the first Zurich “crime scene”, this time the focus was on the origin of the two police officers. Ultimately, the Ott case led her to the posh village district in which she grew up. “They know the way around here,” joked Grandjean, who comes from the working class and still chides his colleague who only got the job because of his good connections. “My first friend lived here,” Ott replied stoically. The family of the deceased lived in the neighborhood (“old money”), they just know each other.

It wasn’t just this ambivalence that caused him bad breath: Ott failed in one scene while handling the gun and not only endangered his job, but also the life of his colleague. In turn, she was already toying with resignation: “I just don’t feel at home here in Zurich. This city is … Even if he left the phrase revealingly open, in the end everything seemed to be changing for the better.

crime scene

So 28.02. 20:05 – 21:35 | SRF 1

CH 2021 | 90 min

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