https://youtu.be/d9uRmihmUm0 - (German – subtitles possible)
At the start of this series, my expectations were that it would be just another typical international Netflix ‘the serial killer in a small/isolated community being investigated by outsiders and past trauma being revealed’. On one level this was true, but it was very considerably more.
It turned out to be a thoughtful exploration of the often-crippling effects of the past on the present. Set in an economically dying coal-mining area in what was East Germany, it vividly showed how both history (life in the community pre-unification) and past events combined to have a toxic effect on the present. It showed that for many, unification was a very difficult almost traumatic event, both for individuals and in the way life and assumptions about how the world was, had radically changed. It showed how the old certainties suddenly vanished. Life in this ‘old’ Germany was insular and very hierarchically controlled, often with fatal consequences. But aspects of this old world still permeated the new and it was the struggle between the two systems that was very vividly shown by this series.
Contemporary issues, in this case climate change activism, was also a central issue, being a source too of intergenerational conflict.
The brutally scarred landscape was a vivid symbol of both the economic malaise in that area with that particular industry as well as showing how brutally natural resources were, and are, being used as well as (possibly) carrying some symbolic weight representing the upheaval of re-unification.
With the police focus, there was also a vivid demonstration of the nature of that system in East Germany with its politicization and tight-knit support, vividly contrasted with the very high-tech computer-pad-led approach of the new, and outsider, generation.
I liked the way it was concluded, stylistically as well as structurally. Yes, loose ends were tidied up but there was also a more thoughtful approach in having almost a montage of short scenes at the end which conveyed that not only was the case solved but also the major players had all, largely, come to terms with their traumas.
And this must be the first series of this nature that referenced Thomas Hobbes!