Everyday family life in the Black Forest: In the Schenk-Wolf blended family, everything seemed normal for a long time. Zoé, the daughter of her father Paul Wolf from a previous relationship, has moved out to study. Benno, the son of his mother Miriam Schenk, is about to graduate from high school and still lives with the family. But when Benno’s best friend is found dead, everyone is shocked and at a loss.
“Tatort” commissioner Franziska Tobler (Eva Löbau) and commissioner Friedemann Berg (Hans-Jochen Wagner) first have to see through the entanglements and put the pieces of the puzzle together. The first shows the episode “The Secret Life of Our Children” on Sunday at 8:20 p.m.
While Tobler and Berg are investigating the area surrounding the dead Christopher Gnabri and keep visiting the Schenk-Wolfs, the family themselves realize that there are well-kept secrets in their ranks and that they trust each other more than they would like. “I don’t know if that means anything, but there was an awful lot of blood on one of Benno’s hoodies,” says father Paul to his partner.
But Benno is initially unavailable for the “Tatort” team. He called in sick at school because of a migraine and even his parents don’t know where he is at first. “He’s one of those kids who had trouble adjusting to school life after endless homeschooling,” says his teacher.
The mystery remains. Tobler and Berg ask themselves: Why did Christopher have to die? His mother says there was no trouble: “Christopher was a good boy, helped me with everything, messed with offices for me, gave me most of his apprenticeship salary.” But the evidence is growing that Christopher was involved in the Freiburg drug scene and his death could possibly have something to do with it. And it’s not just the children who seem to have secrets from their parents – the adults in the blended family aren’t as open and honest as they pretend to be either.
Tobler also experiences the gap between parents and children on a personal level: her niece does not get along with her parents and lives with the inspector for a few days. The teenager makes videos and uploads them to social networks. Because she wants to become an influencer. This is completely incomprehensible to Berg; he comments on the way young people sometimes want to earn money today with a grumpy: “We grass dachshunds just keep trying with honest work.”
“Tatort: The Secret Life of Our Children” – a crack runs through the generations
When watching the film, the audience looks at the younger generation through the eyes of the older generation. She has her own ideas about life, while the adults are often stuck in their everyday lives. A career aspiration such as an influencer does not fit into the world of parents and is smiled at wearily. How far the worlds are separated from each other is visualized by a split screen. This allows the audience to see what different characters are doing at the same time but not know about each other.
Generation researcher Rüdiger Maas says that it is normal, especially with regard to social networks, for adults to have a completely different relationship to them than their children. Because while the young people grew up with the new technologies, the parents only came into contact with them in adulthood, he tells the German Press Agency.
Nevertheless, it is important to create understanding for one another. Maas recommends: “Just listen to the other generation – without judgement.” On the one hand, the older people have to take a step back, on the other hand, the younger ones have to give the older ones the chance to explain why certain things bother them or why they see things differently. So you just have to put yourself in the other person’s shoes.
In the “crime scene” the audience only finds out at the end of the film what really concerns the young people. It turns out that this generation is not as naïve and superficial as adults initially seem.
