The viewer begins to shiver in the first few minutes. A young woman trudges through a lonely winter forest on a cloudy November day. The film “Kalt”, which can be seen on Wednesday at 8:15 p.m. on the first, tells why she looks so tormented.
The woman’s name is Kathleen Selchow (Franziska Hartmann), she has been working as a teacher in a day care center in Berlin for many years. On a trip to the nearby forest, she takes on a group of 17 children – and the responsibility. When counting, she notices that two children are missing. The colleagues (who ran along in front and to the side) did not notice the disappearance either. The boy drowned even though he can swim. The girl is found seriously injured.
Commissioner Leila Storm (Anne Ratte-Polle) takes over the investigation. Nico was the son of neighbor Melanie (Patricia Aulitzky) directly across the street, and a friend of Kathleen’s son Luca (Johann Barnstorf), who also suffers from the events like his father Robert (Božidar Kocevski). The parents at the day care center turn their backs on her, the colleagues fall out, and Kathleen is charged with involuntary manslaughter.
Franziska Hartmann (38, “A Strange Daughter”) is in almost every scene in the picture. She plays a desperate woman who has made a fatal mistake and suffers terribly from failing at work and neglecting her duty of care. She portrays it so magnificently that her tormented face almost burns into the viewer of the film. But all the other actors are also very good – especially the children.
The impressive film by director Stephan Lacant (50, “Freier Fall”) tells a very terrible story that seems far away and yet is very close – people make mistakes almost every day. Here it is serious and affects two families at the same time, whose supposedly safe everyday life is completely out of joint.
In addition, there is an oppressively cool atmosphere in a desolate, densely built new housing estate, an oppressive lack of conversation between the families, and poignant flashbacks in blurred images. The colors are somber, the music a bit too melancholy. Kathleen’s freezing is gradually transferred to the viewer, who – spellbound by this calmly told story – literally suffers with her. A relevant film.
