It’s not just the clothes that make the man



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The episode “Monsieur Murot’s holidays” overturns once again the logic of television. You have to be involved in this.

Felix Murot (Ulrich Tukur) will change the bike for the car during the holidays.

Felix Murot (Ulrich Tukur) will change the bike for the car during the holidays.

ARD

Holidays are a break from the self. A time when you hope that you can escape not only from your co-workers, but also to some extent from yourself, to enter a state of nascent self-forgetfulness. “Maybe I’ll come back to you like someone else,” says Chief Inspector Felix Murot (Ulrich Tukur), deciding his postcard of his holidays in the Taunus. As soon as he has written it, this line should become his program.

Because Murot meets a man in a restaurant who looks a lot like him. His doppelganger is used car dealer Walter Boenfeld (also Ulrich Tukur), a heavy, loud, slightly chubby guy with a gold chain under his shirt collar. A bottle of wine and a spin later, Boenfeld invites Murot to his home. In the sauna he tells him that his wife Monika (Anne Ratte-Polle) wants to kill him. When he is drunk, clothes and identities are exchanged.

The great Tukur show

The next morning the hangover follows on the porch swing, at least for the real Murot. His twin was deliberately hit by a car on the street at night. However, the body of the car dealer in the elegant white suit is mistaken for that of the inspector. He decides to take the game a little further and actually becomes someone else through the exchange of identities: he learns to sell cars and can fulfill Tom Sawyer’s fantasy of attending his funeral (almost) without being recognized.

And in the new “Tatort” we are in the middle of the great Tukur show, this time with a murderous story “Das doppelte Lottchen”. It’s not as kinky as it was in previous episodes, but it’s still so unlikely that you need to be a part of it. If you do, the episode is a lot of fun. Murot not only goes beyond conventional television logic, but explicitly teases it by turning it upside down.

Monika Boenfeld (Anne Ratte-Polle) and Felix Murot (Ulrich Tukur), who she thinks is her husband.

Monika Boenfeld (Anne Ratte-Polle) and Felix Murot (Ulrich Tukur), who she thinks is her husband.

ARD

After all, it’s not a new experience for her character to meet a second self or take on a different identity. Murot’s cases are mostly fantasy constructs taking place in the head, making him a quintessential schizoid detective. No “crime scene” is so tailored to a singular figure that it is not psychologically grounded, but instead jumps from a meta level to a meta level. Le tatort pour le tatort.

Murot is not a hulot

The wait entitled “Monsieur Murot’s holidays” is implicit in the episode. While last year’s case almost became a remake of John Carpenter’s action thriller “Assault on Precinct 13” (1976), Jacques Tati’s classic “The Holidays of Monsieur Hulot” (1953) is this time only partially inspired by quotes. Murot also sits upright on his bicycle or plays tennis with the same special technique as Hulot, amid the musical leitmotif of the film’s sounds.

But in contrast to the fictional character of Tati, who has armed himself with his pipe and hat and counteracts the adversities of modern life and civilization, Murot has surprisingly quickly adapted to his new environment. What remains of Hulot’s Don Quixote battle against technology is a brief dispute with a lawn mower. And, as a deeper connection, the overbearing, cheerful melancholy of a summer day with no plans.

«Tatort» from Hesse: «Monsieur Murot’s holidays», Sunday 22 November, at 20:05 on SRF 1 and at 20:15 on ARD.

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