The manager of a German timber company is herded naked into the forest by people in bear costumes before they set the dogs on him. An archaic image stands at the beginning of the crime drama, which is richly peppered with motifs and characters “Bloodwood” (Arte, Friday, 8:15 p.m.), which combines Romanian history and current issues such as the deforestation of valuable primeval forests. The bare areas in the magnificently photographed Carpathian landscape show the audience that you don’t have to travel all the way to the Amazon in Brazil to discover evidence of fatal environmental sins.
“Don’t try to understand the story. The moment you understand them, you’ll go insane.
Quote from the movie
The author and director Torsten C. Fischer, who has experience in crime fiction, sends a worn-out, alcohol-addicted ex-soldier into the thicket of his complex story as the main character. And thanks to Joachim Król’s melancholic, reserved playing style, this Hans Schüssler, who had to leave his home in Transylvania 40 years ago, quickly fell in love with him. Schuessler, a former target investigator and Bundeswehr soldier, is commissioned by the company to find the missing manager.
In Romania he meets a bold young lawyer (Alina Levshin), his old love (Désirée Nosbusch) and other ghosts from his own past. It’s about illegal logging and corruption, the marginalization of the Roma, the aftermath of the Securitate terror and European subsidy fraud. “Bloodwood” is not a thriller that just aims for suspense, but that broadens the horizon.
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