Eight episodes on Netflix for a story that mixes genres and goes from espionage to familiar melting
Co-production between Germany and Canada, spoken in many crossed languages, The Defeated (The Defeated) in 8 episodes on Netflix, a historical tale with a dramatic fixed location, the destroyed Berlin of 1945 and divided into four zones of political influence: Americans, Russians, English and French. the same hallucinatory scenario in which Billy Wilder had set his International Scandal with Marlene Dietrich in ’48, but then the ruins, the destroyed houses, the rubble, the dust, the confusion were all real things, live from the end of the war, no tricks and no deceptions, like Rossellini’s year zero in Germany.
In the series narrated in English and German, all the scenography is obviously the result of the digital technique and it can be seen, in fact what is a little lacking is the truth of the context and also characters who sometimes risk being mannequins without real inner strength. But otherwise the series is interesting and lets itself be followed with curiosity why mix many styles and genres, goes from history to espionage, from the beginnings of the Cold War to the familiar mel: in fact, typically made in the USA, the story of two American brothers on a mission (with a German mother), one of whom is the hero of the situation and the another schizophrenic after a tragedy lived behind closed doors. They are called Max and Moritz after the evil and pestiferous brothers of a famous German pop noir comic. The policeman in charge Max who must find, always at the risk of his life, with his colleagues in the district a dangerous criminal, profiteer of girls and bosses of prostitution and the black market, hidden in the meanders of Berlin with a network of complicit girls.
The brother is a pure and tough Nazi hunter even those who are hiding, have powerful support, leave for South America under a false name with private flights and do not even spare the name of Pope Pius XII, among those who have not really fought Hitler and an old controversy. In the long film, everything and more happens, you see a famous hotel in Berlin with a crippled name (the real one is called Kempinski), the mechanism of the jeep chase is used a lot, the eternal game of spies (there is always a point weak, mother’s heart), the heroism of the young Jew who has the tragedy of the Shoah behind him and the German policewoman, a linguistics teacher, who becomes the other half of the value to temporarily bring back something that resembles peace.
Interesting for those who don’t remember well Berlin history before the 1961 Wall, therefore the four zones of influence between which diplomatic contacts were easy and also illegal ones (see the trade of paintings as a reward, put a Klimt in the attic), the series has a psychoanalytic Freudian type dramaturgical center anyway. The fulcrum in the special relationship between the two brothers and the fact that it doesn’t end assures us in a second season. The multinational cast fed even if not by stars: Taylor Kitsch the good, Michael C. Hall (known for Dexter and Six feet under) the corrupt Tom Franklin with alcoholic and nymphomaniac wife, the executioner brother and splashed (but not too much) Loran Marshall -Green, Nina Hoss, the best, is the German inquisitor and Sebastian Koch, perhaps the best known face for the film The Lives of Others, the awkward and perfidious engelmacher, metaphorical creator of angels who sells his skin very dearly.
Missing, in the series written by Mans Marlind, the charm of the mystery and also the anger of Alexander Platz that will come, but even if some weak factor, their sum is a dramatic with many characters sometimes maneuvered automatically, without the necessary and sanguine energy of that historical moment. The Nuremberg trial of Nazism and its complicities will follow, from 20 November 45 to 1 October 46, that of Stanley Kramer’s film Winners and Losers, a masterpiece of the 1960s that summarizes the meaning, tragedy and morality of Nazism.
September 8, 2021 (change September 8, 2021 | 07:52)
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