Babylon Berlin is a $40 million TV series, a public/private collaboration (no pun) between German state TV and UK’s Sky Atlantic. The show begins airing on Netflix today.
The series intends to depict Weimar Germany in the 1920s, albeit with escapist themes. From NPR:
In 1929, the capital of the Weimar Republic was a hedonistic city of extremes. True to the party drug of the era, you could say this new series is Cabaret on cocaine. The first season depicts a city on the edge of an abyss. It’s set before the rise of fascism, and a few months before the American stock market crash.
Co-creator Achim von Borries says a German period drama that’s not about World War II or the Cold War is long overdue. “In the ’20s, it was really the capital of the world. And nobody really knows about it because, of course, the monstrosity of the Nazi period afterwards is so huge.”
In the city where Albert Einstein, Bertolt Brecht, Kurt Weill, Marlene Dietrich and Walter Benjamin set the artistic and intellectual pulse, Babylon Berlin follows a different beat — that of police inspector Gereon Rath.
Co-creator Achim von Borries says a German period drama that’s not about World War II or the Cold War is long overdue. “In the ’20s, it was really the capital of the world. And nobody really knows about it because, of course, the monstrosity of the Nazi period afterwards is so huge.”
In the city where Albert Einstein, Bertolt Brecht, Kurt Weill, Marlene Dietrich and Walter Benjamin set the artistic and intellectual pulse, Babylon Berlin follows a different beat — that of police inspector Gereon Rath.
According to co-writer and -director Tom Tykwer (best known for his 1998 film Run Lola Run), Weimar Berlin was as rich in crime as it was in culture. He says, “We had some really famous serial killers, some really ugly crimes that came from Berlin and that created a myth about the darkness and the filthiness of the city.”
In the first episode, Rath and his partner, Bruno Wolter, arrest a former colleague who’s now a heroin addict living on the streets. Wolter mocks him for being a so-called “trembler,” a World War I veteran suffering from shell shock. Rath remains silent because he, too, suffers from the effects of the war; he suppresses his shakes with regular doses of morphine.
I have my doubts, here’s hoping it’s not too SJW.
