A murder mystery goes (super) natural with 'Snow'

In an Austrian alpine village, a changing climate causes havoc as a dead body appears in a glacier.

A woman with pale red hair wearing a jumper and coat stars ahead.

Brigitte Hobmeier in 'Snow'. Credit: Martin Rattini

Six-part Austrian-German thriller Snow (Schnee in German) might centre around a mystery death, but don’t sit down expecting enthusiastic detectives, red herrings, a big lightbulb moment, or any other standard-issue crime tropes. No: Snow leans into the “mystery” side of “murder mystery”, diving into ideas and imagery from the natural and supernatural world. The result? A stunningly original and haunting tale about the uneasy coexistence between humanity and nature.

At the heart of the show is a young family moving to the ominously-named village of Rotten, high in the Austrian alps – serious and successful doctor-slash-mum Lucia (Brigitte Hobmeier), joker dad Matthi (Robert Stadlober), son Jonas (Paolo Di Sapia), and severely asthmatic daughter Alma (a superbly unsettling Laeni Geiseler). When Alma and Lucia uncover a body, strange occurrences start surfacing, and it seems to always have something to do with the much-mythologised mountain that overshadows picturesque Rotten.

Rotten’s high-altitude setting, from glaciers to wild wolves, is woven all through the plot, and it’s also what drive the family to the village: Alma’s frequent asthma attacks made them leave Vienna in search of more breathable air. Rotten certainly delivers on the family’s need to be close to nature – perhaps a little too much.

'Snow' takes us high into the mountains. Credit: Oliver Oppitz

From the first seconds of Snow, the show’s natural setting is a starring character, and it helps elevate the show beyond being just the story of a mysterious death. In Rotten, nature doesn’t seem willing to play nice. From rocks tumbling down a mountainside next to the family’s car to wasps appearing in the depths of winter, it’s clear that the natural world in the show is acting out. The show isn’t coy about what’s causing this – it’s climate change. But it smartly avoids lecturing viewers about the topic (in fact, the words “climate change” are barely spoken). Instead, Snow leans into creating an uneasy atmosphere around the natural anomalies that are happening in its plot – for example, the ever-present streams of water that the villagers seem to encounter at a time when the village should be frozen over. This emphasis on nature is also heightened by some stunning cinematography of the mountain village, as well as a sparse yet intense soundtrack full of simple, pared-back sounds of drums and wood flutes.

Lucia (Brigitte Hobmeier) soon finds herself caught up in events of the past and present. Credit: Oliver Oppitz

It’s also climate change that sets off the murder mystery plot at the heart of Snow, and the lesson is clear: when humans mess with nature, bad things happen. Specifically, a melting glacier reveals the body of a young woman, Marianne, who vanished 40 years earlier. And when Lucia orders an autopsy on the body against the wishes of the town’s longtime residents, she and her family find themselves sucked into the drama at the heart of Rotten.

But the mystery here isn’t purely about what happened to Marianne – it’s about the supernatural occurrences that seem to be happening in tandem with her body being discovered and the town’s changing climate (and ever-logical Lucia failing to explain them). Ghosts and creepy mountain animals pop up and vanish, and the show bends reality to fit its own mythology (and its myths are well laid-out: we’re given enough detail not to be wildly confused, but still left with enough mystery to be titillated by the show’s mystery). For example, it’s clear that Alma is some kind of oracle figure with some kind of link to Marianne, but what exactly this means is open to interpretation, at least in the first parts of Snow. And trying to wrap your head around this is the real appeal here, more than just simply figuring out what happened to Marianne.

A girl in a beanie and bright yellow jacket stands in the snow, pointing.

Alma (Laeni Geiseler). Credit: Oliver Oppitz

In that sense, Snow feels a little like another famed supernatural murder mystery show: David Lynch’s Twin Peaks. Both create their own supernatural folklore as they peel back the layers of a small town in the wilderness, exposing a dark side and plenty of secrets. They’re not the same – Snow has much less of a detective element, and its supernatural side is far less chaotic and wacky than Twin Peaks. But the two have a similar vibe – a murder mystery where the enigma is really a question of “what’s behind all the weird stuff happening to this town?”. And both have their share of tangled side-plots. In Snow, that includes Matthi’s businessman father Bruno (Karl Fischer) unveiling plans for a new cable car up the village’s mountain – a move sure to bring tourists and environmental degradation to Rotten (and it cleverly feeds back into the show’s anxiety about humans impinging on nature).

To Snow’s credit, it links all these disparate pieces of its story together with flair: its mythology is sprawling, but without biting off more than it can chew over six episodes. And it’s also truly innovative when it comes to TV crime: the puzzle in Snow goes far beyond one corpse. More than just a mystery, it’s a tale about humans and the natural world getting along (or failing to do so) – and it’s an eerie delight to behold.

Snow is streaming now at SBS On Demand.