Berlin Babylon
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October 2018 The Berlin Times 3 out of Döblin – that figures BY URSULA SCHEER in the fate of each our stars: the weighty, warmhearted yet o one evades the under- brutal Bruno Wolter (Peter tow of ecstasy, nor the Kurth), who passes himself off Nvortex of doom. As the BERLIN TIMES as something like a fatherly first double-episode of Babylon friend. Berlin comes to a close and the A political sex scandal pro- denizens of a packed nightclub vides but a succulent introduc- throb to the music, entranced tory segue to the main events and infatuated by the androg- that will ensnarl the main char- ynous charm of the Russian 1929 acters: a bloody massacre and a performer on stage, elsewhere conspiracy involving a freight in the city Stalin’s henchmen train from Russia. Poison gas, unload their Gatling guns on an Weighty, warmhearted, brutal – Berlin Babylon is the German TV series bounteous amounts of gold and underground band of Trotskyite of the year, depicting life in the German capital during the Roaring Twenties the ambitions of the “Black dreamers. A lady of the night Reichswehr,” a group of gen- finds her John; confetti litters the erals out to restore the Kaiser air; bodies fall in a flurry of gun- to his throne – these are just fire. The singer lowers her mask, a few of the factors our stars banana-skirted dancers contort face in season one. Season two their bodies à la Josephine Baker features the specter of commu- and a love-struck youth looks FILME FRÉDÉRIC BATIER/X nists and brownshirts marching on in awe. the streets, as a pincer move- Everything spins, everything ment of right- and left-wing happens at once and everything enemies of democracy threatens relates to everything else: the to take down history’s actual glamorous and the gruesome, lust Foreign Minister Gustav Strese- for life and fear of death, desire mann and the fictitious, Jewish and pain, the lives of the little Deputy Police Commissioner people and the global political August Brenda. order. The images in the final Babylon Berlin is no history sequence are cut to the rhythm lesson. It is an adaptation of of the music, forming a wide Volker Kutscher’s novel Der shot in the mind’s eye: Such is nasse Fisch (The Wet Fish) Babylon Berlin, the capital of with a slew of historical details the German Reich in the year thrown in a manner somewhat 1929, six years after the hyper- lacking in academic rigor, but inflation of the early Weimar the broad strokes of history Republic, and four years before more or less hit the mark. And Hitler comes to power. We find Tom Tykwer exploits certain ourselves at the peak of the Roar- of his talents that have brought ing Twenties, a year in which the him success in the past: his use Worker’s Revolt meets its bloody of kaleidoscopic imagery, his suppression, Alfred Döblin pens expertise at combining the fates his Berlin Alexanderplatz and of many individuals into one Bertolt Brecht delivers the trium- dynamic narrative whole and phant Threepenny Opera. his inimitable sense of tempo Lead director Tom Tykwer and timing. It’s no matter that (Run Lola Run; Sense 8), who the plot is sometimes over- also co-created the series with wrought – what a ride! We Achim von Borries and Henk have love, sex, syphilis, crime, Handloegten, claims he is trying the state, and we’re just get- to hurl his audience into a time Party like it’s 1929: Charlotte Richter (Liv Lisa Fries) is out on the town in Berlin Babylon. ting started; a woman dies but machine. The mammoth project lives on, a tattooed priest of shot at 300 locations for 185 And why not? Is Germany not Väter (Our mothers, our war order was unshakable. This Gereon Rath. The commissioner the underworld and an Arme- shooting days with over 5000 the country that – in the era in fathers) tried, at last, to culti- order is crumbling before our of the homicide division comes nian stir up trouble. The series extras in just two seasons, on which Babylon Berlin is set – vate a complexity and cinematic eyes; the trans-Atlantic axis is to the capital from Cologne. He does not economize on violence, a budget of (gulp) €40 million. produced films like Metropolis? language that critics compared creaking; Europe is struggling is concealing a secret mission as gruesome corpses or gross To make it all happen, the fee- Nazi propaganda films and the to Band of Brothers. for cohesion; the refugee crisis well as his love life and a mor- improbabilities, yet it invokes, financed public television station repressive kitsch of post-war But looking back at the 1920s and the fear of radicalized Islam phine addiction. Only drugs can indeed flawlessly, the classics ARD first had to join forces with cinema would later teach Ger- is something new. Babylon is dividing society; the estab- quell his would-be disqualifying of the era of silent film. Its the subscription channel Sky. The mans a healthy skepticism of Berlin is now venturing such a lished parties are faltering and tremors that he and many other greatest success, however, stems most expensive German series of the seductive power of imagery. feat – it first ran on Sky in 2017, right-wing populists are gaining soldiers brought home from the from its atmospheric depth. If all time is seeking to step out of The medium became rather pro- and now currently on ARD – momentum. Germany is inch- trenches. At his side, played you’ve seen even three episodes, the provinciality of German TV saic, often a bit superficial and finding large audiences and ing closer to “Weimar condi- by Liv Lisa Fries, is the young you need only hear the menac- and onto the world stage without never experimental. Toeing the already drowning in awards. tions.” But a series like Babylon Charlotte Richter, a modern ing brass section in the intro betraying its roots in European line was the order of the day. This is a symptom of something Berlin is a sensuously shudder- girl and a product of Berlin’s to become fully submerged in culture. It wants to speak to both Epic television was dedicated darker, as were a series of recent ing glance into a distant mirror. grim working-class districts. By Babylon Berlin. a domestic and a global audience, to the Middle Ages, the present, exhibitions on the art of the Two main characters stare day she’s a stenotypist at the fans who for almost 50 years have the division of Germany or the era. For Germans, the splendor back at us from the panorama, Alex, Berlin’s infamous police religiously watched the successful catastrophe of the Third Reich. and misery of the first German each conflicted, morally suspect headquarters. By night she’s URSULA SCHEER is a television critic and arts crime series Tatort as well the In terms of the latter, Philipp democracy seem closer at hand yet likeable, and each portrayed a prostitute, who dreams of a editor for the Frankfurter devotees of The Sopranos and Kadelbach’s 2013 World War II than they were just a few years by outstanding actors. Volker career as criminal investigator. Allgemeine Zeitung. Game of Thrones. drama Unsere Mütter, unsere ago, when trust in the post- Bruch is the Great War veteran And then a character – straight BADEN-WÜRTTEMBERG – WHERE PEOPLE LOVE TO LIVE AND DISCOVER @ Nowhere else can inventors work – and live – so well. L-Bank plays its part, by promoting a climate of innovation with various programmes for small and medium-sized enterprises. We also promote quality of life with measures aimed at families, infrastructure and climate protection. 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