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Dark: Why it’s time to binge Netflix’s successful original German series

Netflix’s first German-language series ‘Dark’ premieres its third and final series on June 27th, much to the delight of legions of fans.

Published: 1 July 2020 15:59 CEST
Dark: Why it's time to binge Netflix's successful original German series
Photo handout: DPA

The complex, layered story of four families in the small German town of Winden has captured the imagination of millions in a way that few of the streaming service’s productions have. Haven’t seen it yet?.

Here’s five reasons why ‘Dark’ is the German TV show you should be binging.

It’s all about time…

It’s hardly a spoiler to say that ‘Dark’ concerns itself mostly with time travel. Characters travel between a few distinct eras of Winden’s recent history, each 33 years apart.

A scene from the third episode of Dark. Photo handout: DPA

Their actions in each of these periods, deliberate or otherwise, have knock-on effects that reverberate across the decades to cause some truly mind-boggling complications.

If you enjoy the knotty nature of time travel narratives, trying to tease out paradoxes, then this is mostly definitely something that you will enjoy.

Just make sure that you have a pen and paper with you – you’ll need it to work out some of the more complicated relationships.

…but at the heart of it, it’s all about love.

If the time travel elements can be confusing, then the motivations of the characters may not be. Everyone is acting out of love – romantic, paternal or otherwise. Unrequited, forbidden and first loves all feature throughout the three seasons, and the family relationships forged are utterly central to the show’s narrative.

READ ALSO: Ten top films and TV shows to discover Germany from your couch

The Kahnwalds, Dopplers, Nielsens and Tiedemanns are all connected in various ways, some very surprising, and only revealed over time. What matters, however, is that it’s very easy to empathise with the characters and their actions. Most of the time, they just want to be with a certain someone, even if they are separated across the years.

It looks amazing…

Director Baran bo Odar, co-creator Jantje Friese and cinematographer Nikolaus Summerer have together created some of the most striking visuals and painterly shots of the 21st century throughout ‘Dark'’s three seasons, working off a dark palette to imbue a heavy, portentous atmosphere.

Characters mutter that Winden is ‘cursed’ more than once, and the way the town and surrounding forest are shot, one can easily believe it.

It’s not just about creating mood, however. ‘Dark’s’ complex narrative requires the occasional break to make relationships clear, or give the viewer the opportunity to fully ponder the full implications of a twist. It’s here that bo Odar and Summerer come into their own with beautiful montages that impart a lot of information without a word being spoken.

…and it sounds great.

Just as important to ‘Darks’ success is its soundtrack. You may have heard the show’s distinctive and melancholy theme, ‘Goodbye’ by Apparat, and the show’s composer, Ben Frost has created a harsh, but beautiful electronic score that manages to tell as much story as the visuals.

The actors Louis Hofmann und Oliver Masucci at the European premiere of Dark on November 19th in Berlin. Photo: DPA

However, as a show that takes place across three time periods, select songs from various time periods play a very significant role, and even comprise various plot points.

Bright, optimistic big band tunes from the 1950s, punky, aggressive music from the 1980s and moody electronica from the 2010s all set the stage and feature in those montages previously mentioned.

Really, it’s just so incredibly German.

‘Dark’ is a show made by Germans, for a German audience, despite its worldwide following. From the ubiquitous yellow revision textbooks on the desks of some of its teenage protagonists, to the strong opposition over the nuclear power plant that makes up one of the shows’ major locations, the show oozes the little details of life in Germany over sixty-six years.

Watching with Germans, I’ve been surprised at the number who’ve noted with glee some aspect of household furnishing, popular culture or simply the attitudes expressed by characters. Indeed, the show’s focus on questions of free will, in itself speaks to a very deep philosophical Teutonic mindset.

Want to better understand those somewhat serious neighbours around you? Why not give ‘Dark’ a go?

All three seasons of ‘Dark’ are available on Netflix now. 

 

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DISCOVER GERMANY

Eight amazing German museums to explore this spring

With thousands of years of history in Germany to explore, you’re never going to run out of museums to scratch the itch to learn about and fully experience the world of the past.

Published: 5 April 2024 10:46 CEST
Eight amazing German museums to explore this spring

Here are eight of our favourite museums across Germany’s 16 states for you to discover for yourself. 

Arche Nebra

Nebra, Saxony-Anhalt

One day, around 1600 BCE, local Bronze Age peoples buried one of their most precious objects – the Nebra Sky Disk, a copper, gold, and bronze disk that acted as a calendar to help them plant crops. This was a matter of life and death at the time. 

Over three thousand years later, in 1999, it was uncovered by black market treasure hunters, becoming Germany’s most significant archaeological find. 

While the Sky Disk itself is kept in the (really very good)  State Museum of Pre- and Early History in nearby Halle, the site of the discovery is marked by the Arche Nebra, a museum explaining prehistoric astronomy and the cultural practices of the people who made it. 

Kids will love the planetarium, explaining how the disk was used. 

Atomkeller Museum

Halgerloch, Baden-Württemberg

From the distant to the very recent past – in this case, the Nazi atomic weapons programme. Even as defeat loomed, Nazi scientists such as Werner Heisenberg were trying to develop a nuclear bomb. 

While this mainly took place in Berlin, an old beer cellar under the town of Halgerloch, south of Stuttgart, was commandeered as the site of a prototype fission reactor. 

A squad of American soldiers captured and dismantled the reactor as the war ended. Still, the site was later turned into a museum documenting German efforts to create a working reactor – one that they could use to develop a bomb.

It’s important to note that you don’t need to be a physicist to understand what they were trying to do here, as the explanatory materials describe the scientist’s efforts in a manner that is easy to understand. 

German National Museum

Nuremberg, Bavaria

Remember that scene at the end of ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’, where an unnamed government official wheels the Ark of the Covenant into an anonymous government warehouse? This could possibly be the German equivalent – albeit far better presented. 

The German National Museum was created in 1852 as a repository for the cultural history of the German nation – even before the country’s founding. In the intervening 170 years, it’s grown to swallow an entire city block of Nuremberg, covering 60,000 years of history and hundreds of thousands of objects. 

If it relates to the history of Germany since prehistoric times, you’re likely to find it here.

Highlights include several original paintings and etchings by Albrecht Dürer, the mysterious Bronze Age ‘Gold Hats’, one of Europe’s most significant collections of costuming and musical instruments, and a vast display of weapons, armour and firearms. 

European Hansemuseum

Lübeck, Schleswig-Holstein

In the late Middle Ages, the political and economic centre of the world was focused on the North Sea and the Baltic German coasts. 

This was the domain of the Hanseatic League, one of the most powerful trading alliances in human history. Centuries before the Dutch and British East India Companies, they made in-roads to far-flung corners.

The European Hansemuseum in the former Hanseatic city of Lübeck tells the story of the league’s rise and eventual fall, its day-to-day operations, and its enduring legacy.

This museum is fascinating for adults and kids. It uses original artefacts and high-tech interactive elements to tell tales of maritime adventure. Younger visitors will also be enchanted by the museum’s augmented reality phone app that asks them to help solve mysteries. 

Fugger & Welser Adventure Museum

Augsburg, Germany

The Hanseatic League was not the only economic power in the late Middle Ages. The Fugger and Welser families of Augsburg may have been the richest in the world until the 20th century.

From humble beginnings, both families grew to become incredibly powerful moneylenders, funding many of the wars of the 16th century and the conquest of the New World.

The Fugger & Welser Adventure Museum not only explains the rise of both patrician families but also the practices that led to their inconceivable wealth—including, sadly, the start of the Transatlantic slave trade. 

The museum also documents the short-lived Welser colony in Venezuela, which, if it had survived, could have resulted in a very different world history.

This museum has many high tech displays, making it a very exciting experience for moguls of any age.

Teutoburg Forest Museum

Kalkriese, Lower Saxony

Every German child learns this story at some point: One day at the end of summer 9 AD, three legions of the Roman army marched into the Teutoburg forest… and never came out. 

Soldiers sent after the vanished legions discovered that they had been slaughtered to a man.

Arminius, a German who had been raised as a Roman commander, had betrayed the three legions to local Germanic tribes, who ambushed them while marching through the forest. 

Today, the probable site of the battle – we can’t entirely be sure – is marked by a museum called the Varusschlacht Museum (Literally ‘Varus Battle Museum’, named after the loyal Roman commander). 

The highlights here are the finds – made all the more eerie by the knowledge that they were looted and discarded from the legionaries in the hours following the ambush. 

German Romanticism Museum

Frankfurt, Hesse

The Romantic era of art, music and literature is one of Germany’s greatest cultural gifts to the world, encompassing the work of poets such as Goethe and Schiller, composers like Beethoven and artists in the vein of Caspar David Friedrich.

Established in 2021 next to the house where Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was born, the German Romanticism Museum is the world’s largest collection of objects related to the Romantic movement. 

In addition to artefacts from some of the greatest names in German romanticism, in 2024, you’ll find a major exhibition exploring Goethe’s controversial 1774 novel, ‘The Sorrows of Young Werther’, and another on the forest as depicted as dark and dramatic in the art of the period. 

Gutenberg Castle

Haßmersheim, Baden-Württemberg

Sometimes being a smaller castle is a good thing. The relatively small size and location of Guttenburg Castle, above the River Neckar near Heilbronn, protected it from war and damage over eight hundred years – it’s now the best preserved Staufer-era castle in the country.

While the castle is still occupied by the Barons of Gemmingen-Guttenberg, the castle now also contains a museum, that uses the remarkably well-preserved castle interiors to explore centuries of its history – and the individuals that passed through it.

After you’ve explored the museum—and the current exhibition that uses Lego to document life in the Middle Ages —it’s also possible to eat at the castle’s tavern and stay overnight!

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