Babylon Berlin

The times that in Chinese curses are called “interesting” are also interesting to many authors of films and TV series. The reason is that they often provide all sorts of extreme scenarios and situations which, to the audience—especially one situated in more peaceful and comfortable spatiotemporal coordinates—appear far more entertaining than they do to the characters forced to live through them.

Among others, this is what guided the creators of Babylon Berlin, the TV series that, with a budget of around 40 million euros, became the most expensive such project in the history of German television. The plot, based on the novels of Volker Kutscher, is set in a period of German history that could be called “interesting” in the sense of the Chinese curse, but also literally so. Due to a series of vivid and exotic details, it has been relatively frequently treated by filmmakers, among whom perhaps the most famous are the legendary Rainer Werner Fassbinder with his epic TV series Berlin Alexanderplatz, and also Bob Fosse with his popular musical Cabaret.

The story begins roughly exactly halfway through the period that started with the end of the First and ended with the beginning of the Second World War—namely, in Berlin in the spring of 1929. One of Europe’s leading metropolises is now the capital of a liberal democratic republic whose Weimar Constitution seems the most progressive in the world, and whose government, dominated by Social Democrats, liberals, and Christian Democrats, has—despite the draconian provisions of the Treaty of Versailles—managed to consolidate state finances, and with them the general economic situation, which is reflected in relative prosperity and the weakening of the extremists who dominated politics in the first post-war years.

Thanks to this, Berlin has become a “cool” place where one can find technical innovations like radio, modern airports, and sound film, and where a culture is blooming that can only be compared to the ultra-hedonistic and dissolute nightlife contributed to by “relaxed” attitudes towards sexuality, including alternative forms. However, like every big city, Berlin also has its dark sides, the most noticeable of which is the terrible poverty in the working-class districts, among whose residents the ideas promoted by the Communist Party of Germany—which the Weimar regime sees as the greatest threat to its survival—have become appealing.

Into such a Berlin recently arrived the protagonist Gereon Rath (Volker Bruch), a police inspector from Cologne, who has found a placement in the vice department of the Berlin police. This transfer is merely a cover for his real mission: the attempt to uncover a mysterious criminal or gang that is blackmailing Rath’s family with a secretly produced pornographic film. This investigation will draw Rath into Berlin’s pornographic underworld, linked to Edgar “the Armenian” (Mišel Matičević), the owner of the popular nightclub “Moka Efti”, who represents the unofficial boss of organised crime in Berlin. The same club is the favourite haunt of the young and ambitious Charlotte Ritter (Liv Lisa Fries), a girl who dreams of starting a career in the police despite being forced occasionally to engage in prostitution to feed her poor family. At first, she only manages to become a secretary, but even there she shows great talent and dedication to her work, which is why she will begin investigating the murders of Russian emigrants connected to a Trotskyist cell seeking to overthrow Stalin’s regime, as well as a special train that has arrived in Germany from the Soviet Union as part of a secret plan for Germany to rebuild its army and obtain modern weapons, which it is forbidden from having under the Treaty of Versailles.

Ritter’s investigation begins to intertwine with Rath’s, and the police inspector, besides numerous dangers and political intrigues, must confront private problems related to war trauma, the disappearance of his brother, his love for his brother’s wife Helga (Hannah Herzsprung), and an addiction to morphine.

One of the creators of Babylon Berlin is Tom Tykwer, a filmmaker who became famous two decades earlier with his short but effective action film Run Lola Run, but who has also shown an exceptional tendency to make each of his films in a different style. This approach can be seen to some extent in this epic work, whose first sixteen episodes (sometimes presented on Netflix as two separate seasons) show an exceptional diversity of approach, which is entirely appropriate for projects with such ambitions and an epic quantity of content. Tykwer and his colleagues throughout enjoyed not only a high budget but also modern special effects with which the former Berlin—destroyed in the last war—has been reconstructed in detail and quite convincingly.

Nevertheless, what will most impress is the willingness to shift generically into diverse waters—from classical historical drama, which tries (and most often succeeds) to explain the complicated political circumstances of the Weimar Republic to today’s viewers in an accessible way; through classic crime film (paying homage to the silent films of Fritz Lang, which represent genre classics); to action films that in some details can compete with Fast and Furious; black comedy; and, finally, film musicals. This is perhaps best seen in one short but charming dream scene in which Bruch and Herzsprung dance.

When it comes to music, Babylon Berlin stands out most for its skilful combining of authentic hits from the end of the Weimar era with later songs, made or arranged in the style of the 1920s, to which a significant contribution was made by Bryan Ferry, frontman of the group Roxy Music, who also briefly appears in the role of a singer. However, the strongest impression was left by Lithuanian singer Severija Janušauskaitė, who also appears in the series in the role of the Russian emigrant and femme fatale Svetlana Sorokina, but also performs the main song Zu Asche, Zu Staub which became a huge hit in Germany.

The success of the series is also considerably contributed to by the diverse cast, who are mostly unknown to audiences outside the German-speaking area. Volker Bruch, whose physical resemblance to Hollywood actor Rami Malek is hard not to notice, carries the series very successfully, as does Liv Lisa Fries who portrays an unusually strong female character, yet one convincing within the context of the period when many doors were closed to women. Peter Kurth is likewise extremely effective in the role of Inspector Wolter, a character who simultaneously serves as partner and mentor to Rath and Ritter, and whose moral orientation—despite a series of questionable actions—remains unknown until the very end as to whether he will turn out to be a good guy or a villain.

It is precisely in this indeterminacy that the greatest quality of Babylon Berlin can be recognised. The audience who will watch this series mostly has some idea of how the world being depicted ended—the Weimar democracy was replaced by the Nazi regime which would, either indirectly or directly in war, turn that world to dust and ashes. However, although Babylon Berlin is characterised by exceptional care for historical detail and largely avoids the anachronisms so common in Hollywood films, it shows that this outcome was not predetermined, or at least did not seem likely to those who were deciding everything. The Nazis barely appear or are mentioned almost until the very end of the first season; instead, the main danger is presented by the communists, and only somewhat less so by generals who still cannot reconcile themselves with the war defeat, and even less with the republican regime that brought it about, and who instead dream of a return to the pre-war monarchy. The series quite successfully shows how, beneath the Weimar glaze, supported by a few years of good economy (from which the broad masses anyway did not benefit directly), a deep feeling of national humiliation and injustice smouldered.

That feeling would gain strength when, a few months after the end of the first season’s plot, the stock market bubble bursts on New York’s Wall Street, and just as seven decades later, brings universal poverty, despair, and becomes fertile ground for ideologies, movements, and personalities ready to gnaw away at the liberal democratic order.

Although the finale of the first season, as with many series, ends on a melodramatic cliffhanger that somewhat strains credibility, Babylon Berlin is one of the rare historical series that speaks in an indirect, but quite disturbing way, about today’s “interesting” times.

RATING: 8/10 (+++)

(Note: The text in the original version is available here.)

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