2023-05-25 12:09:09
The new season of the successful sadcom about a single father from Berlin starts just in time for Father’s Day. As good as it started, it continues.
Metin (Max Mauff, r.) and the film daughter Lene (Pola Friedrichs) are a top team, but both are missing Emma. In the second season of MaPa, both are allowed to smile more again.rbb Press & Information
Just a moment ago, Emma (Lia von Blarer) as a supermother saved her child’s (Pola Friedrichs) toilet seat (“Yes, the toilet seat, it belongs to my daughter”), which is why she didn’t take care of this daughter for a moment – and suddenly Lene is gone . The toilet seat, which the now five-year-old played with as a baby, and everything else doesn’t matter immediately. It’s the moment all moms and dads dread the most, the seconds when the fear builds. But suddenly Lene appears from behind a tree, and of course the child has no idea what worries it has caused.
The scene takes place in the sixth episode of the second season of “MaPa”, and it is irritating: Emma shouldn’t actually be holding her daughter in her arms, because Emma – that’s actually the prerequisite for the “MaPa” series – is dead. The first season told about how the mother died a few weeks after Lene was born and from now on the father Metin had to be both mom and dad: “MaPa”. The series was a sad, melancholic experiment that you rarely see in Germany – and the success for the makers came as a surprise.
“I definitely didn’t want one like that Tear Jerker“, says the screenwriter Alexander Lindh, who had the idea for the series and has now written the new episodes again. He wanted to avoid a maudlin play where every episode is all about early deaths and missing people. “That’s why each episode has its own focus and has a topic that affects not only widowers, but all young parents.” Sometimes it’s about the compatibility of work and family, sometimes about fateful encounters, and yes, sometimes there is also grief still noticeable, says Lindh. But he could also imagine experimenting even more, for example designing an episode as a musical or as a silent film.
The team hasn’t gone that far in the second season, but the new episodes once again succeed in making dark material not only touching, but also colorful and cheerful. And so there’s a pure flashback episode in which the child doesn’t appear yet, and another in which the authors have acted out in a parallel universe what would have happened if Emma were still alive and had separated from Metin. They have to divide their time with Lene, discuss organizational matters on the phone – and end up in the hospital to witness the birth of another baby. This scene is one of the most beautiful that German television currently has to offer.
The shooting conditions were family-friendly
In the past few months, the impression has grown that the revival of outstanding German series could already be over. Where there was euphoria about “Babylon Berlin”, “4 Blocks” and “Dark” shortly before the pandemic, more conventional series such as “Luden” suddenly emerged again, and even the Netflix series “1899” was discontinued after one season . With “MaPa”, however, the authors’ joy in writing and the actors’ joy in acting is clearly noticeable.
Lia von Blarer prepared for the role of Emma for a long time: “I wanted Emma to be a modern mother,” she says, “but also a searching character.” In preparation, she spoke to midwives and young parents and ultimately also to them their own parents. “In the beginning, everyone doesn’t know how to do it.” She means staying awake and being patient and the ability not to lose sight of your child. “This scene in which I lose Lene, we shot it at the beginning, at Plötzensee.” She can still remember this feeling of primal fear that she played, the uncertainty of whether she would ever see her daughter again.
Max Mauff is playing the young widower again and he noticed that he smiled more often this time. “I can’t remember ever looking happy in the first season.” No more “widower bonus,” it says at one point. Instead, he discusses with his daughter about her allowed screen time, which she constantly wants to extend, even falls in love again – and reads bedtime stories with Lene, which actually tell more about him as a father.
“It was also great,” says Mauff, “to work for once in a production where many have families.” The shooting weeks each had an average of four working days and closing times were strictly adhered to. “The team should not be burned,” says Metin. Both actors agree that the best days of shooting in Berlin were when they could simply drive home from the locations, which were mostly around Schöneberg, to their friends and families. Mauff has been a father himself for several years. Maybe that’s why he plays the scene in which Metin loses sight of his daughter so strongly that he almost freaks out with fear. “It’s clear: his wife is dead, he only has Lene left.”
Map. 2nd season. From May 18th in the ARD media library. On Friday, May 26, episodes 1 to 4 can be seen on the first channel from 10:20 p.m. Episodes 5 and 6 will air the following evening from 11:40 p.m.
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