Der Fall Brenken: A dusty little mystery that feels its age

Is it worth the time?

If you have a thing for German cinema from the early 1930s and don’t mind some heavy, stagey acting, give it a go. If you need your thrillers to move faster than a glacier, you’re gonna hate it. It’s definitely for the type of person who enjoys clicking through deep archives on a rainy Tuesday.

The whole thing starts with a shooting at the Gussersee Hotel. It’s the kind of setup that feels like it belongs in a noir, but it’s played much straighter and, frankly, a bit clunkier. Hermann Brenken, some big-shot executive, takes a bullet, and the newspapers immediately turn it into a circus. That’s probably the most modern thing about it—the way the media hype creates a frenzy before the police even have a real lead.

There is this moment in the middle where the film just stops to let the characters argue in a hotel lobby. It goes on forever. I swear, I started counting the patterns on the wallpaper just to keep my brain from turning to mush. You can really tell they were still figuring out how to balance dialogue with tension, and sometimes, the balance just falls over.

Adele Sandrock is in this, and she carries a certain weight that nobody else really manages to hit. It’s like she’s in a completely different, much better movie than everyone else. She walks into a scene and the air changes. The rest of the cast? They’re just kind of… there. Moving through the motions.

It’s a bit like watching The Trouble Fixer in terms of that weird, procedural energy. Only, you know, with more German gloom. 🕵️‍♂️

Random thoughts from the notepad:

• The lighting in the hotel hallway is surprisingly moody, almost like they knew what they were doing for five minutes.
• I found myself wondering if they actually built that set or if it was just a corner of some drafty warehouse.
• Every time a newspaper headline pops up, the font is so big it’s practically shouting at you.
• The background extras in the hotel lobby scenes look like they’d rather be literally anywhere else.

There’s a strange, stop-and-start rhythm to the whole production. It lacks the slickness of something like It Pays to Advertise, but maybe that’s the point. It feels like a historical artifact more than a piece of entertainment. You’re watching it to see the cracks, not to solve the crime.

I wouldn't call it a masterpiece. I wouldn't even call it a hidden gem. But it has this weird, persistent gravity that keeps you watching even when the plot starts to sag under its own weight. It’s not great, but it’s certainly… something.