“Rapist” is written on the body that is found in Munich. The dead man was a research assistant at the Institute for Postcolonial Studies – but was he also a rapist? This is what Inspector Cris Blohm (Johanna Wokalek) tries to find out together with her colleague Otto Ikwuakwu (Bless Amada). But the university employees flatly refuse to cooperate with the police. In laborious individual interviews, the investigators only gradually come closer to the solution.
The fact that a crime thriller finally deals with what modern German calls “woke” was long overdue. In “Little Boxes” the academic milieu of postcolonial and gender studies is humorously skewered. There are students who fundamentally suspect white people of racism. A genderfluid teacher who wants to be addressed as Professx and believes consensual sex between men and women “under patriarchal conditions” is fundamentally impossible. Even the police department is caught up in the spirit of the times and is demanding a different wording: “We no longer say perpetrator, we now say perpetrator.”
The trick of this film, written by Stefan Weigl (“Time of the Cannibals”): It is the black man Otto Ikwuakwu who rejects the focus of research on discrimination. “Exploitation, genocide, genital mutilation, burqa – everything is secondary. The main thing is that no one uses the N-word,” says the investigator, who refuses to constantly be seen as a victim. “Sometimes it’s not racism. Sometimes it’s just stupidity,” is his experience.
Despite the deliberate humorous exaggeration, the fact that racism and gender research is worthwhile and provides important insights for everyday dealings in a multicultural society is sometimes lost here. The perspective of the white majority society dominates. The sentence from a black student who says to Inspector Blohm is almost lost: “Would you like to spend a day in my body? I bet you would shoot yourself after half an hour.”
It’s anything but love at first sight: Cris Blohm doesn’t want a partner, as she gets along very well with the cozy Dennis Eden (Stephan Zinner). Otto Ikwuakwu, on the other hand, is cold and distant and insists on the formal you. “I like people who don’t have a sense of humor,” claims Blohm – and tries to break the ice. Which she almost succeeds in.
We can expect a lot more from this “police call” team. You definitely shouldn’t miss the debut!
These “police call” episodes most recently came from Munich:
