The great binge Guide to choosing the best series of the last 30 years: "Don't waste time eating York ham because there is sirloin"
The new Netflix sensation is called
1899
and it has been placed among the most watched on the
streaming
platform as soon as it was released.
And
it is not an easy proposition to see
.
Its complexity, intensity and drama set it apart from the fast-paced consumer product category that is so abundant these days.
In this German production, the mystery begins when
Kerberos
, a ship that travels to America with passengers of different nationalities at the end of the 19th century, finds itself in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean with another ship that has been missing for months.
What happens when the crew members come into contact with that drifting ship sets up
a story full of twists where each of the main characters hides a secret from their past
from him.
And where present, past and future are mutable realities that twist until they force the spectator to be very concentrated to tie the threads.
Series
The big binge
Guide to choosing the best series of the last 30 years: "Don't waste time eating York ham because there is sirloin"
Drafting: ESTHER MUCIENTES Madrid
Guide to choosing the best series of the last 30 years: "Don't waste time eating York ham because there is sirloin"
If these characteristics (German series, complexity and Netflix) that define
1899
sound familiar to more than one viewer, it is because of
Dark
.
That production premiered in 2017 and was sold all over the planet as the
first Netflix original series produced in that country
.
Its 26 episodes spanned three seasons and was created by the same people responsible for this new one.
Baran bo Odar
and
Jantje Friese
, who are a couple in real life, are the same ones who now make viewers "suffer" again with theories that speak of
Lost -style dreams,
Matrix
- like simulations
and in which the myth is cited from
Plato's cave in an undisguised way
.
Does all this sound very complex?
According to them, it can be.
This is
how Jantje Friese
, producer and screenwriter, explained: "At bottom,
1899
is about existence, why we are on the planet and who created us."
Something that the Swiss
Baran Bo Odar
ends up complicating when defining this project: "The series starts out as a period drama, suddenly it becomes a scary story and, in the end, it becomes a science fiction proposal ", creator.
The series starts out as a period drama, suddenly turns into a scary story and, in the end, transforms into a sci-fi proposition.
Baran Bo Odar
If in
Dark
a cave located in the middle of the forest gave access to parallel universes and time travel, in
1899
some characters present on a ship in the middle of the ocean discover connections with events from their own past without sometimes leaving their cabin, with hidden access under the floor.
And, ultimately, ending in a passageway that takes them to another area far away from the rough ocean, the almost permanent rain and the fearsome waves that surround them at all times.
Although revealing too much could destroy an experience in which the soundtrack plays a fundamental role.
Versions of great
songs by Jimi Hendrix, David Bowie or Cat Stevens
underline at key moments the great international commitment that Netflix is making with a series that has been filmed on the outskirts of Berlin, at the Babelsberg studios.
There, with virtual sets using the latest technological advances, the ship, ocean, and other outdoor landscapes like those featured in those trips to other places have been fantastically created from scratch.
Bo Odar
has revealed that his initial proposal was to record
1899
in different locations.
Something that the pandemic made impossible and led them to rethink their original idea to, later, do it with the help of a technology called
Led Volume
.
An evolution of the traditional chroma that allows recreating with maximum fidelity any scenario, no matter how complex it may be.
As explained in a 'how to' available on Netflix, the results amazed the creators.
And, on the part of the fans, it is surprising to see that it does not distract from the true focus of the plot:
the personal relationships that take place inside the ship
.
The interactions that are generated between the different crew members of the
Kerberos
are less complex than those carried out by the heroes and villains of
Dark
.
And, above all, a little easier to follow.
Which does not detract one iota of interest from
a product that bases its strength on moving away from the ordinary and playing to be different
in the same way that
WestWorld
, by
Jonathan Nolan
and
Lisa Joy
generated philosophical debates around a proposal that spoke of creating beings. artificially that they could become aware of their own existence.
Returning to the previous creation of those responsible for
1899
, in
Dark
His taste for twisting the narrative was already evident, showing characters that appeared at three different ages, forcing many viewers to pay close attention not only to their names but also to their gestures and decision-making if they wanted to follow the plot. way without getting lost too much.
On that occasion, the disappearance of a child had four families in a small German town on edge.
After the chapters, the connections that many of them maintained were soon discovered and in which love, power and a secret that passed under a nuclear power plant present in said municipality were fundamental bases for some scripts in which there was no lack of references to Nietzsche. .
And that each act carried out in one of those three reflected epochs had its echo in the others,
Getting to create alternative universes that a time traveler tried to correct with relative success
.
With regard to
Dark
, in
1899
we find ourselves again with a choral cast.
But, unlike that one, here there are interpreters of different nationalities, whether they are German, English, Danish, Portuguese... Repeat the German
Andreas Pietschmann
, an interpreter who in
Dark
gave life to a time traveler who seemed to know everything and whom we now see become Ayke Larsen, the captain leading a large group of people.
A guy dominated by fear, who can't find a logical explanation for events and who wants to know what happened on the gigantic ship discovered in which only one child has survived.
Next to him, the English
Emily Beecham
like Maura Franklin, a woman who claims to be a doctor, who is at the center of the plot from the outset and who has a close relationship with the shipping company that owns the ship they are traveling on.
For Spanish fans, seeing the Valencian
Miguel Bernardeau
in a role of a type of rude manners who permanently hides his feelings is a pleasant surprise due to his importance in the plot and for corroborating that this actor does not stop growing after his appearance in the successful
Elite
.
About the importance of having a cast so full of different voices, Friese, the creator of the series, has spoken: "
1899
is a truly European production, with characters from different countries who speak their native language."
That is why both the work of Miguel Bernardeau and that of the rest of the actors are more attractive to see in the original version.
1899
is a truly European production, with characters from different countries speaking their native language.
Jantje Friese
In matters that have to do with the narrative, there is an element that helps a lot when it comes to understanding the complexity of the characters.
The
flashbacks
in which they remember where they come from and what has made them suffer at a given moment connect directly with the mentions of the possibilities that science has always imagined about the brain and that have been carried out since the first of the eight chapters that make up this first season.
For this reason, the fact that Maura's character appears in a mental residence anticipates issues that will only be revealed in the final episodes.
Also in
Dark
one of the protagonists ended up confined in an installation of this type in the same way that someone observed (as it happens in 1899) in detail each one of the decisions that were made in a kind of controlled surveillance.
Something that in this case has to do with a large black pyramid located in an inhospitable landscape.
And, like any great fashion product worth its salt, there has also been controversy
.
Specifically, the accusation of a Brazilian author named Mary Cagnin.
According to her, her comic
De ella Black Silence
de ella, published in 2016, had elements of the
1899
plot as a great black pyramid, deaths on a ship with crew from many countries, personal dramas and inexplicable events.
All this has been immediately answered on social networks by
Baran Bo Odar
, who stated that he "feels extremely sad and angry" with the accusation of plagiarism with a "project so special that it has taken years of work."
Finally, he explained that watching the series and reading the comic made it clear that they had nothing to do with each other.
The professional tandem made up
of Jantje Friese
and
Baran bo Odar
got its start when, in 2005, they joined forces for the short film
Quietsch
, directed by the former and produced by the latter.
Later, in 2010, they collaborated on Ice Silence, a mystery drama in which the disappearance of a girl in the middle of the field had many parallels with the death of another minor two decades earlier.
In 2014, the great success of the film
Who Am I: No system is safe
would arrive, where Jantje Friese would already sign as a co-writer.
That
thriller
about cybernetic pirates triumphed at the German box office and helped both director and screenwriter to be tempted by Netflix for a major project like Dark in the end.
Aware that the stakes must be raised without disappointing the legion of followers they already have, in
1899
they wanted to pamper them in different messages sent through the statements they have made, making it clear that
1
899
is not the new
Dark
, but " something new and fresh
. "
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
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