The first time i tried watching Babylon Berlin was about two years ago when i was scrolling through Netflix's recommendations for new series to watch. I tried an episode or two but it did not pan out -- possibly because every time i tried to watch the series, i was always already on the verge of drifting to dreamland. But #Covid19 changed everything so that instead of spending my free time outdoors, i find myself indoors most of the time now -- ergo, more TV time for me. Thus, in the last week of May i found myself being confronted by Babylon Berlin on the Netflix homepage once again and decided to give it a run over. And this time around it had me hooked from the moment i re-watched the first episodes that i was able to finish all 3 seasons of the series in less than two weeks. I loved the visuals and the music, and it even had a little bonus -- revisiting my rudimentary knowledge of the German language and practicing its pronunciations once again.
Set in 1920s Berlin and the last years of the Weimar Republic, the thriller and period drama was loosely adapted from Volker Kutscher's Gereon Rath crime series and per The New Yorker is said to be one the most expensive non-English production to date.
The first thing you will notice though about Volker Bruch, who plays the lead character Gereon, a police inspector from Cologne with PTSD from his WWI experiences, is his passing resemblance to a young Robet De Niro. But apparently he also is a good actor in his own right --
;)
-- same goes for the other cast members, having won among themselves the prestigious Grimme-Preis for their roles in the neo-noir series. Yet the most interesting character was Charlotte Ritter (Liv Lisa Fries), who aspires to become the first female detective in Berlin Police's history while moonlighting as a prostitute. Oh, one could only imagine and admire the guts and strength of character of those flappers who defied the norms and convention in the roaring 20s.
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