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The village with its thousand secrets …
from: Trailer
White Snow and Red Blood
Let’s begin with … some remarks by me:
There are 4 seasons so far and the last one is referred to as the final season. When watching this season … well: there is some sort of cliffhanger – so I assume that there might be another season – at least it’s a sort of preparation to continue. However, it might also be that the creators of the series just would like to point to the fact that sometimes a criminal manages to escape law and order to live happily ever after.
From the end to the beginning …
Rosa Wilder is on her way to her village in the Swiss mountains, where she was born and raised, when suddenly something fells from heaven in front of her car. A big bird, maybe an eagle or a hawk, dropped some prey. Rosa examines the fallout … it’s a climbing boot with the skeletal remains of a foot and a crus. Of course she is curious and starts an official examination of the bones – of course with no idea about the avalanche she’ll make happen during the next days and weeks.
It’s winter – and almost all seasons and episodes take place in winter. There is this great white snow all over the place, the mountains, the lakes, the villages with some very blue skies or more grey and dark grey skies. The roads are free from snow and ice – sometimes. Everybody seems to have cars suitable to any bad weather … Most of the time it’s a dreamy place, a winter wonderland.
However, there is crime, there are corpses, there is blood. Most of the time all is covered by snow and ice as well as by the silence of any residents, if innocent, if guilty, if just somehow involved. Rosa is used to this environment and starts digging as soon as she scents some foul play. She is an officer of the cantonal police in Bern, mainly responsible for murder cases.
When a kidnapping occurs in her village, she gets the order to investigate, although there is also an officer of the federal police who likes to take over because the case seems highly critical because of the involvement of high-rank police and judicial people as well as politicians and business leaders. So Rosa finds herself in between the local police, not used to any violent felonies, and the overwhelming federal police, always in a hurry to close the case. She doesn’t really care and just investigates.
Finally it turns out that there was a buried crime decades ago that suddenly is unearthed presenting new insights and new suspects. Unfortunately Rosa herself and her family are deeply involved … a stint in prison is on the horizon. Of course also some influential people from business, arts and administration had their roles then and today leading to more crime in order to hide whatever happened then and now.
All is set up and starts with a big bang aka murder case and during the season step by step more and more people seem to be involved and Rosa stirs up long forgotten events. Get prepared for ugly crimes amid the bucolic winter villages covered in snow and nasty truths about family affairs: there isn’t much real privacy in a small village, all families are intertwined on a personal and economic level. Rosa seems sometimes trapped in her feelings for friends from her childhood and adolescence when learning disturbing news about them. In short: Rosa always in all seasons ends up in this mess of families and friendships in her village.
When Rosa investigates she always stumbles across Manfred Kägi, her colleague from the Swiss federal police. At first they are far away from any co-operation as colleagues should perform, but they learn to respect each other – finally becoming friends. Kägi is offbeat and often extravagates meaning that suspension and internal investigations are never far away. Nevertheless he is a brilliant police officer with a lot of gut feeling and the unfaltering intent to reveal anything.
After an unplanned one-night-stand with a friend from her childhood in her village she becomes a single mother and moves to Bern. For some years she doesn’t tell the father of her child nothing about what happened. Then she gets a new case that leads her back into the fascinating world of this small village … and she starts talking with the father. In general Rosa isn’t very successful concerning relationships … there isn’t a happy end with the father of her child, nor with any other of the guys buzzing around her.
Later on Rosa takes a time-out to care for her father fighting a cancer attack. Although out of any active function she starts investigating when there is a new turmoil on the horizon amid the snow … leading to some more crimes, partly buried in the past … when it finally seems that one of the main evildoers pulling all the strings gets away with …
The series combines easily the wonderful Swiss winter world and bucolic villages, simple life and high-tech ambiance, seemingly poor existence and luxurious excesses. Behind all of it there is the past with its decisions and crimes which are not totally buried, but evolve sometimes and cause new crime.