German reviews I’ve seen for Berlin Station #richardarmitage

[Thanks to the German Richard Armitage Board for most of the reconnaissance. If you know of others, please let me know.]

At Wunschlist.de:

[3.5/5] The tone is grim, the tempo more slow than anything else, but of course Steinhauer does not reinvent the genre. The plot’s building blocks are familiar, occasionally much too worn … the conversations of the scenes delivered only in German are simply a failure; additionally the scenes involving decoding (with tarot cards and crossword puzzle magazines) miss it by a hair. The exciting thing in this series, it becomes clear quickly, is not the what of the plots, but the how of the setting.

And in that point, “Berlin Station” does a lot right, because they hired the right people [Roskam, Heil, Bogdanski] … The way the series orients itself topographically and narratively in the city is clearly superior to these attempts in “Homeland,” even if the selection of backgrounds seems to be oriented primarily toward the insider tips in the Lonely Planet travel guides. They buy vegetables in a neighborhood store in Wedding, they drink coffee in a hot Kreuzberg bar, they munch falafel next door, they conspire in a a record store, and a lot of scenes play around Kottbusser Tor (which the boulevard press recently designated a no-go-area). […] Namedropping from Merkel to Union Berlin hails down, and of course the chief spies dine at Borchardt. Why Miller has to bike past the Reichstag on his way from Alexanderplatz to Kreuzberg is unexplained, as well as why the spies meet clandestinely at the former Teufelsberg listening station (which is heavily guarded), or why exactly a high level whistleblower would pick the Berliner Zeitung as his publication partner. But other than that, even non-Berliners would get a better impression of the city than from some of the Berlin Tatort episodes. So independently of whether the meticulously initiated spy story of the first episodes has enough substance for ten whole episodes, at least the substructure of the urban atmosphere and the pleasingly facet-rich roles raise the desire to watch the series over its whole span.

Berliner Morgenpost (this is a Berlin city paper):

In order to feel the drama, the viewer would have to be able to identify with the characters, share their sympathies. But it’s difficult. […] all this is only introduced, not deepened or made psychologically plausible.  Apathy is thus the predominant feeling when one sees the agents in dark meeting rooms, at clandestine meetings at the Teufelsberg (who goes that far out of the city just to have a secret meeting?) or as they steal and read others’ cell phones.

Of course, it’s the city that allows at least the Berlin audience to play the “where is that again” game. […] But this pastime wears out. The fifth season of “Homeland” […] showed us most recently how Berlin’s unique backdrop can be used in service of an exciting story – American writer Olen Steinhauer’s (“The Tourist”) story only offers cultivated boredom in comparison. Even such established German actors in the supporting roles as Bernhard Schütz and Claudia Michelsen can’t do much to save anything.

The effect that might provide an interesting exoticism for the American audience passes by the German viewer almost without notice: the constant change from German into English doesn’t register at all for those who see the dubbed version, but even Germans who watch the original version will not recognize anything exciting.

Thus “Berlin Station” remains a disappointment and at the same time a symptom for the speed with which the market for TV series is currently changing. Ten years ago these sedately narrated episodes might have found an audience and even shocked with some of the nightclub scenes. Today, in the age of brilliantly written dramas …. one finds oneself asking after every episode if one really wants to watch another one. It’s a bad report card in a format that counts on binge watching and wants to bind the viewer as much as possible to the screen for several hours.

Die Zeit (this is a center-Left national weekly paper that focuses on culture, art, politics):

All the series production companies seem to employ the same Berlin location scout. At least the filming locations of the fifth season of Homeland, Wanted, and now Berlin Station are interchangeable according to whim […] So anyone who wants to watch a capital city travel guide is in good shape.

Within the Berlin panorama, the story drip drops solidly, but also somewhat blandly onward. […] German women have long blond hair, are called Claudia and get murdered or they have short brown hair, work for the Berliner Zeitung and are called Ingrid(!). If nothing else, the German-speaking characters are cast in an interesting way with Bernhard Schütz, Claudia Michelsen, Kida Khodr Ramadan and Sabin Tambrea. At least the casting agency thought of something interesting.

Der Tagesspiegel (Berlin local paper):

Narratively conservative … also the visual language has a conventional effect. Breathless chase scenes lead through empty buildings while men in grey suits hold important conversations in cafés with high ceilings. What distinguishes the newest US-series to play in Berlin is above all its fresh glance at the city. In contrast to the Berlin season of “Homeland,” which shows its characters most notably on the grand boulevards of the city, Berlin Station shows the German capital more from a seamy perspective.

Berliner Zeitung (Berlin local paper):

The plot hardly sounds surprising, but the series puts across a sympathetic glance to the viewer. Because it’s not only about the lovely and familiar tourist destinations … “Berlin Station“ leads its viewers as well over construction sites, courtyards filled with trash, graffiti-sprayed houses, empty and decaying buildings, as well as late night convenience stores, laundromats and apartments that weren’t arranged by an interior decorator … about a quarter of the series was shot in Babelsberg, the other scenes in original Berlin locations. This is different than in (for example), the successful US spy series Homeland, whose fifth season was produced in Berlin. In that case the Americans weren’t very exact about original locations. Scenes from tidy Kollwitzplatz in Prenzlauer Berg were transferred to a grimy corner in Kreuzberg, along with the street sign. […] In „Berlin Station“ the city plays itself: a raw, authentic backdrop, that doesn’t seem threatening or artificial, but rather molds the positive image of the hip, garish capital. Casual, liberal, lascivious, lovable.

~ by Servetus on July 22, 2017.