So was it conspiracy or incompetence that allowed Rohwedder to be killed? That's the primary question posed in the first episode of A Perfect Crime, a so-far reasonably fascinating true-crime examination that keeps the pace brisk without sacrificing informative detail. It digs into some forensics, gives us a solid contextual history lesson - perfect for non-Germans unfamiliar with the story - and stirs up intrigue around the political motivations of his assassination. Tonally and stylistically, its talking heads, brief re-enactments and archival TV-news footage is nothing we haven't seen before, but documentaries need not be visually groundbreaking to be interesting. (Subtitles may be a hurdle for non-German-speakers; the series doesn't properly ID the titles of interviewees, so I had to painstakingly type Very German word like "terrorismusbekampfung" into Google Translate to learn that all those syllables mean "counterterrorism.")
Of course, the assassin was never identified, so don't expect the series to answer possibly unanswerable questions. (There are only so many documentaries like The Thin Blue Line, you know.) Potentially more compelling is how it sets up Rohwedder as a hero for the democratic state but a villain to the people, a man inflicting immediate pain for future prosperity. The key to keeping our binge on track is whether or not A Perfect Crime explores the character of the man, because right now, he's been described as kind and competent, but we don't know if he's more of a compassionate humanist or government bureaucrat. Was he likeable or just another rich white guy in a suit? I'd like to find out.
Of course, the assassin was never identified, so don't expect the series to answer possibly unanswerable questions. (There are only so many documentaries like The Thin Blue Line, you know.) Potentially more compelling is how it sets up Rohwedder as a hero for the democratic state but a villain to the people, a man inflicting immediate pain for future prosperity. The key to keeping our binge on track is whether or not A Perfect Crime explores the character of the man, because right now, he's been described as kind and competent, but we don't know if he's more of a compassionate humanist or government bureaucrat. Was he likeable or just another rich white guy in a suit? I'd like to find out.