The conception was supposedly immaculate, the birth becomes a bloodbath. In the hospital of Frankfurt (Oder) lies a 16-year-old who is 21 weeks pregnant, but cannot or does not want to explain how she has become. In the hospital, a late termination of the pregnancy is supposed to take place, but during a fire alarm, a young man, who considers himself a prophet, sneaks into the operating room and cuts the child out of the belly of the young woman in front of a running mobile phone camera.
The mother dies a little later, the child survives. The doctors had diagnosed a disease with which it should not have survived, so the termination was allowed to take place at this late stage. But there the newborn now lies a few hours after the attack with life-hungry eyes in the incubator, and behind the ear it carries a black time, as the young man had previously predicted in videos, well, yes. Even the doctors say, “It’s a miracle.”
Suddenly, the devout Polish Catholics, who had previously gathered in front of the German hospital to demonstrate against late termination, celebrate the murderer of women as saints. Hallelujah.
Sure, miracles keep coming. But this “police call” has some too much of it in the plot. At the same time, the sometimes supernatural events do not disturb so much, because like any good crime of faith, “Holy shall you be!” must make implausible elements of action seem plausible, at least over stretches, so that we can empathize with the religious delusions of the main character.
And the credibility has been blown away
But in this “police call” with the German-Polish investigative team around Olga Lenski (Maria Simon) and Adam Raczek (Lucas Gregorowicz) there are simply too many miraculous twists and turns even in the crime plot – from unsecured hospitals to prison doors that are open all over the place. The pious fantasist overcomes all worldly barriers and boundaries, as if he were in fact something like a Holy Spirit. As a credible psychological character, he blows us away at the latest in the last third of the film.
He is very interesting in his plant. How this Jonas (Tom Gronau) with biblical specialist knowledge has crafted together a second identity as a revenant of the prophet Elijah and how he wants to bring people back on the right path on social networks certainly touches in his world-lostness – even if the Christian fundamentalist geek has a very cruel effect on his environment through his work. A mechanism that the filmmakers implement with the will to the bloody occult horror: God’s nerd and devil’s contribution.
Devil’s Expulsion That Brings the Devil to Life
The screenplay was written by Hendrik Hölzemann, who recently reinvented the Saar “Tatort” as a grim social piece. The film was directed by Rainer Kaufmann, who recently filmed an artfully improvised “police call” on the subject of a nursing emergency. The basic idea for “Holy shall you be!” comes from Matthias Glasner, who has just shot the second season of the Sky series “Das Boot” and has previously taken rigorously in movies like the rapist drama “Der frei Wille”. The current “police call” is also most consistent when the filmmakers dare to remain in the logic of the main character; if we believe for a few risky moments in the zealot to recognize a Redeemer. The film actually has some of these disturbing what-if moments.
For example, when the would-be Elijah has to face the exorcism of a father whom his mother has ordered for him. This is a scene that, despite all the hocus-pocus in this “police call”, strongly shows the fatal emotional deformations that fundamentalist faith can produce. It is the expulsion of the devil that brings the devil to life.
Review: 6 out of 10 points
“Police call 110: Holy you shall be!” Sunday, 8.15 p.m., ARD
