2023-12-25 12:57:13
A narrow valley in a narrowing present. There is snow that is at least white and innocent. The mountains watch as people tear each other apart, search for each other and lose each other, are torn apart by the passage of time that the summits don’t care about at all. A landscape as a mirror of time and the world: The Alps are an eternal gift.
That’s why it will probably remain an eternal mystery in cinema and television history as to how rich and powerful Switzerland allowed itself to be so left behind when it came to mountain films. For example, from Austria in general and from Tyrol in particular.
The reluctance to shamelessly exploit its geographical heritage, as its eastern neighbor does between “The Dark Valley” and “The Mountain Doctor,” could be attributed to arrogance or arrogance. Or with discouragement or sleepiness.
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In any case, it took a century and, according to reports, almost a decade of production preparation before it seemed obvious to enough people that Thomas Mann’s “Magic Mountain”, which appeared in 1924, could be followed up with a series sequel on television. Filmed where Mann’s wife once cured her lungs, in the former Schatzalp sanatorium at an altitude of over 2,000 meters in the highest city in Europe.
A kind of “Babylon Davos”. Now she’s here. “Davos 1917” is the name of the six-part series, shot for a budget of around twenty million euros and, like “Babylon Berlin”, co-financed by ARD. The most expensive series in Switzerland.
It’s not surprising now that we’re writing in 1917. Far from the mountains in the lowlands, people are fighting and falling like flies, Thomas Mann’s Hans Castorp probably right among them.
Nothing escapes her: Countess Ilse Von Hausner (Jeanette Hain)
Those: SRF/ARD Degeto/Amalia Film/Contr
Meanwhile, in the sanatorium in the mountains, the lung sufferers lie on couches and under blankets, just like in the Magic Mountain era. A few floors below, however, the injured of all those involved in the war are being patched up in hospital rooms – this was part of the agreement that Switzerland was allowed to remain neutral.
And in the back rooms of the “Curhaus Cronwald”, at the balls and dinners, the progress of the war and the future of Europe are discussed together, spies and politicians, military men and nobles, revolutionaries and reactionaries meet. Champagne flows in the salons, and at some point blood also flows into the innocent snow. Davos is the world in a nutshell. The mountains are watching. They do not care.
“War whore” becomes a spy
The woman who sends “Davos 1917” into the trenches of the global village, between the fronts of the thread spinners, into the minefield of false identities, is called Johanna Gabathuler. She has a face like milk and blood, which is why everyone underestimates her. During the great slaughter, Johanna learned to operate and had a child made by a German.
Her mother calls her “war whore” when she returns home heavily pregnant. The father has the child taken away from her immediately after birth. It would jeopardize his plans. Johanna is needed as a marriage animal and is supposed to marry Thanner for a lot of money.
British General Taylor (Cornelius Obony) and Russian Princess Belova (Sunnyi Melles)
Those: SRF/ARD Degeto/Amalia Film/Contr
Then she receives (house) mail from the German Countess Hausner. She knows where her daughter is and can help. If Johanna started spying for them.
Countess Hausner has a role model in history. Elisabeth Schragmüller, Mata Hari’s command officer. Some things about “Davos 1917” have a model in history. The series should not be misunderstood as a documentary – “Babylon Berlin” mixes historical accuracy and fictional fantasy.
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In their exuberance, the Swiss put too much into the mixer. Female self-empowerment and male toxicity, “Charité” and “Babylon Berlin” and “Our Man in Havana”, love story, finger-fingered references to the present, all on a lush background of Magic Mountain. That looks good. Money may not score goals, but great pictures do.
Dominique Devenport, who was just Sisi and is now Johanna, and the incomparable Jeanette Hain as the Countess play all the men in the shadows of the mountains. You forget a lot when you’re alone with them.
Should be continued, it is said, as “Germany 83” was continued. In the end, you don’t really know whether you should really want that.
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