In the culinary consciousness, the donut is nothing more than an enormously sweet, deep-fried piece of yeast dough that revolves around an empty center. People who are a little familiar with the tuning and car racing scene use donuts to describe donuts, which are painted on the asphalt with rubber using exuberant engine power and a few clear technical tricks (handbrake!). The center remains empty here as well.
“Donuts” is the name of the fourth case of the still new Bremen “Tatort” team. It’s about speeders and revenge, about dream cars and trauma. And an empty center. With no way out. There are no sweets. “Donuts” is an environmental study full of bitter substances.
A BMW is parked at the car terminal in Bremerhaven, which is one of the largest motor vehicle transhipment points in the world. That’s it. Blood drips from the trunk. A man lies in it. He was shot. It’s night. The terminal looks magical. Music drives you crazy. Beats drive the story forward. It will stay that way.
The empty center, around which everything actually revolves in the book by Sebastian Ko, who was born in Bremerhaven (who also directed it), is inside the inspector Liv Moormann. You quickly suspect that, you can see it in Jasna Fritzi Bauer’s face.
That says a lot more anyway than Jasna Fritzi Bauer had to say during the ninety minutes. Watching that face talk is a major part of the fun of this fourth case for the still-new Bremen team, alongside the cars, the colors, the visuals, the music and the plot racing through a valley of guilt.
As Moormann approaches Bremerhaven, the closer she gets to the terminal, the more bitter her expression becomes. She doesn’t want to be there, she’s from there, she fled. The thunderstorm that is playing on the screen at Jasna Fritzi Bauer between the hairline and the corner of the mouth makes you spontaneously rummage on the shelf for the folder with the overvoltage policy.
Liv Moormann was sent to Bremerhaven by the Bremen police headquarters. She is alone. People from Bremen and Bremerhaven, as you learn in “Donuts”, can like each other like Villinger and Schwenninger. Between Moormann and the Bremerhaven department head, there are rather attractive short circuits. But that’s just by the way.
A milieu study becomes “Donuts” because of Marie. It’s faster than Vin Diesel. Hang out in the dead man’s workshop. And is Moormann’s half-sister. She once left them behind in the soul silo with the permanently high-proof mother. Of disgust and affection and sadness and a guilty conscience. Tells Jasna Fritzi Bauer’s face when mother and Moormann sit across from each other. And settle their debt.
Then the story continues. And roars. Through the night, through the day, through the night. That would not have been possible with electric cars.
