Martin Rauch in serialul Deutschland 83 online subtitrat, este recrutat de HVA pentru a se infiltra in armata Germaniei de Vest. In calitate de spion-incepator, deciziile sale i-au pus in permanenta viata in pericol si i-au fortat agentia de care este legat sa ia masuri extreme. Start your free trial to watch The Shield and other popular TV shows and movies including new releases, classics, Hulu Originals, and more. It’s all on Hulu.
Germany’s relationship with cinema resembles England’s with football: a strong sense that this is something the country used to be world class at. Yet this is coupled with a growing frustration at being unable to rediscover that success – despite, or perhaps because of, the resources thrown at it.
At no other time of the year is this wounded sense of pride as openly on display as during the 10 days of the Berlin film festival, which closes on Sunday. This year, many critics are tearing up their notebooks over the fact that only a single German production made it into the competition programme. Ninety years of hurt – and yet the golden era of Murnau, Lubitsch and Lang feels as distant as ever.
You’d think the cinephiles have grounds for hope: cold war TV drama Deutschland 83, which premiered at last year’s festival, has gone on to become an international success story, with rave reviews, bloggers celebrating its fashion and soundtrack, and impressive viewing figures, even in the US. In Britain, where the series finished last Sunday, the first episode was the highest-rating subtitled drama in television history.
Deutschland 83: ‘A lot of people were happy in East Germany’
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What Walter Iuzzolino, the “curator” of Channel 4’s foreign-language drama service, doesn’t quite tell you is that Deutschland 83 was designed to be the big ballsy production that restored German TV’s pride, with the marketing budget to go with it. Yet by the time the last episode was shown in Germany last December, it had shed half its starting audience, with only 1.72m viewers. Not quite “the flop of the year”, as Bild called it, but underwhelming nonetheless.
The odd situation is that after decades of being seen as boring and ugly, Germany has found a way of making people abroad think it is cool and sexy – yet Germans don’t like it. I think I see why.
By focusing the story around Martin Rauch, a young East German border guard going undercover in the west, it doesn’t just make the viewer empathise with a Stasi agent on a human level – in the way The Lives of Others did – it makes us engage with the socialist regime’s worldview, in which a military exercise in West Germany poses a potentially existential threat.
Yet as if to make up for such a radical premise, it then backtracks into stereotype. Stasi officers are cruel ideologues who blackmail family members and fake reports for political ends. The West German officers have messed-up private lives, but they are honest. And to top it all, the peace movement in the west turns out to have been infiltrated not just by Soviet agents, but gay Soviet agents at that – a McCarthyite fantasy come true. In Germany, where the cold war can still send chills, that feels a bit too simple.
A brush with death
If there was one German series I wish would find its way on to British TV sets, it is Der Tatortreiniger, a strange little comedy series about a crime scene cleaner, which premiered in a graveyard slot on a regional network in 2011 but has built a cult following since. In each episode, protagonist Heiko “Schotty” Schotte, whose job “begins when others throw up in horror”, enters the site of another gruesome murder and has to bleach blood-soaked carpets and hoover up bits of brain. Because death for Schotty is as everyday as a burst pipe for a plumber, he doesn’t see the tragedy. Off-the-cuff conversations with neighbours, axe murderers and ghosts of the deceased can spiral into philosophical dialogues. The show has a Brit-flavoured sense of black humour, and a surreal quality that reminds me of Edgar Wright’s Spaced, yet a subtitled version has only ever been screened in the US.
Sugaring the pill
At the very least, chain-smoking Schotty would help dispel the myth that Germans are exemplars of professionalism. I was reminded of this when I was grounded by a nasty cold last week. The German health system, which is less centralised than the NHS, can be shockingly free-and-easy at times. One Berlin doctor once told me that I should breathe on her when I thought I had a throat infection – saying she could smell whether it was serious or not. Though that’s nothing compared to the doctor a friend once saw about his high cholesterol. “I work hard, and I like a beer or two in the evening,” the friend said. “Give it to me straight, doc.” The man in the white coat looked at him long and hard, then got out a map of the city. “There’s a restaurant around the corner – they do a good, bloody steak there. Get a table twice a week and you’ll be fine.”
Air date: Jun 17, 2015
Spy drama set in the 1980s begins with a 24-year-old East German native going undercover in West Germany, where he enlists in their army to glean secrets concerning NATO military strategy.
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Air date: Jun 24, 2015
Martin is ordered to break into the hotel room of a high-ranking NATO official and steal a top-secret report.
MoreAir date: Jul 1, 2015
In Brussels, Martin is assigned to seduce a NATO chief's secretary and plant a bug in their office, and later, Martin's aunt informs him that his mother needs a kidney transplant. Back in East Berlin, Martin's fiancée begins taking care of Ingrid and reveals a secret she's been keeping.
MoreAir date: Jul 8, 2015
NATO goes on high alert after the bug is discovered in Linda's desk, and Martin is forced to cover his tracks, by any means necessary.
MoreAir date: Jul 15, 2015
Martin is recalled to East Berlin, but must first stop and deliver a package to a mysterious contact in West Berlin.
MoreAir date: Jul 22, 2015
While recuperating after the kidney transplant for his mother, Martin contemplates staying in East Germany, but a visit from a Secret Service member has him reconsidering. Meanwhile, Gen. Jackson is taken hostage by Alex Edel, who forces him to film an denouncement of American military plans for Western Europe.
MoreAir date: Jul 29, 2015
Martin receives orders that pique his fear about East Germany's paranoia, and there's the chance that he may have to blow his own cover. Meanwhile, Tischbier takes part in a student demonstration, where he meets Alex and delivers bad news to him.
MoreAir date: Aug 5, 2015
In the series finale, the West continues with its nuclear war game, and Martin, unwelcome on both sides of the border, contemplates a way to keep the East from making a devastating mistake. Meanwhile, Yvonne remains in the grasp of Annett and the secret police; Ingrid tracks down Schweppenstette to save Thomas from prison; and Alex confronts his own demons.
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