The creators of ‘Dark’ are back with an exciting puzzle series

Anyway, it’s not about time travel again. Jantje Friese and Baran bo Odar want to reveal this. After all, the director and screenwriter couple have already extensively turned the topic from the inside out in their supernatural series, which is now three seasons. dark (2017), with which they wrote the first major German-language Netflix series under their own name. but where 1899 or about? It does weird time jumps, and sometimes you wonder what’s right and what’s not.

The German journalist who arranged the interview anxiously asks if you’ve received the spoilers list – all the things you as a journalist are asked not to write about. I say no, but I promise to gracefully avoid spoilers by not talking about the plot, but only the topics presented in the first episode. There are quite a few. After watching six of the eight episodes, there are still plenty of mysteries that make the exciting series something that not only binges you but also rewatches to get all the layers.

Baran Bo Udar: “Without spoilers, we can say that our main interest this time was the structure of the human brain. The most important point is already in the first minute when Maura, one of the main characters, quotes a poem by Emily Dickinson: “The brain – deeper than the sea.”

This sea is everywhere. We are on an ocean liner sailing from the Old (Europe) to the New World (USA). A colorful cast of characters, from German to Chinese, from Danish to Portuguese, each speaking their own language (which was largely a logistical challenge on set) and dreaming of a better life on the other side of the water. With the future on the horizon, each of them also has a life to leave behind. Secrets and guilt You can also bottle it up without knowing more. “At first glance 1899 A series about immigration,” says the creative duo.

“Our imagination arose from an old image of a man in his underwear on the deck of a ship holding a bloodstained hammer. Who was this? Why was that hammer in his hand?” Frisee: “This is how we work. We have an image or an idea and a very philosophical concept with scientific questions, then we delve deeper In our research we try to understand everything there is to know about this topic.”

Pioneering research

Tell them I did some research too: a simple Google search of what was going on in the world in 1899, and the first thing I came across was that 1899 was the year of Sigmund Freud Interpretation of dreams has been published. Do I see them smile through the Zoom screen? We’re still on safe ground, because for the first few minutes of the first episode, we not only hear Maura reciting that poem, we also see her “waking up” (from a dream, memory, or something?) and we hear her scream that she’s not crazy. Friese: “You are on the right track, but this is not entirely true. The end of the nineteenth century was an interesting period when all kinds of discoveries were made in the fields of psychology and neuroscience. Man was on the frontier of an old and a new world.

Another feature is the 70’s music that can be heard at the end of each episode. Another period in which pioneering research has been done.” At the end of the first episode, this is Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit,” the famous trippy Alice in Wonderlandsong, but that song has been used so many times – from matrix until Weird things – This is more of a joke than a spoiler.

Friese: When Christopher Nolan made his dream movie beginning He said in an interview that he was fascinated by the fact that in your dreams you are the maker of your dream world and the recipient, the spectator of your dream. I find that interesting too. You are the writer of a story and you are reading it at the same time.”

Another important idea that the viewer will soon realize is the “architecture” of the series. All episodes follow a certain pattern, with recurring elements serving as plot drivers or pivots. And besides these important clues like the name of the ship Prometheus, which you soon encounter as a rudderless “double ship” called Kerberos, there’s also a lot going on with the “architecture” of the ship. Friese: “In everything we make, we try to tell the story in as many cinematic ways as possible. Not only conveying information through dialogue, but also bringing the locations and movements of light and camera together thematically so that the series feels like a living, breathing thing.” Engineering 1899 It has similarities to something that becomes apparent at the end of Episode VIII.”

Bo O’Dar: “We’re very fascinated by the fact that everything we imagine, all the pain, all the feelings, happens somewhere in our heads. And while we still need a body, it’s in a way a vehicle for our cognition. I think the body is also a brain in itself.” dark At one point we came across research that showed that when you feel thirsty, your arm moves toward a glass of water faster than that information reaches your brain. 1899 It definitely has something to do with what your mind can do. or not.”