![]() It becomes clear pretty early on that this is a show that is deeply fascinated by theories about how the past affects the future, the future affects the past, and a whole bunch of mind-scrambling questions involving time. That's because the show isn't just interested in the present day (well, the near-future: the opening scenes of Dark are set in 2019). ![]() While the pilot, which leans more heavily on exploring the feuds, romances, and friendships between Winden's teenagers as they venture into the town's forests and caves looking for Erik's hidden drug stash, will feel a little familiar to fans of Eleven and co.'s antics, it's once Dark has finished laying the groundwork for its expansive and intricately plotted story that things start to get really interesting. What unfolds over the next nine episodes is incredibly complicated and too spoilery to describe in detail, but it involves uncovered family secrets, multi-generational interlocking stories, time travel, ruminations on determinism and free will, mentions of the antichrist, and a heavy dose of emotional montages set to music for good measure. It doesn't take long - only an episode - before a second boy has vanished, sending the town into a full-on panic. The show, created by Baran bo Odar and Jantje Friese, who caught Netflix's eye with the 2014 hacker thriller Who Am I, follows four families in the small (fictional) town of Winden - which is crucially surrounded by lush forest lands, a nuclear plant, and a vast network of caves - as they grapple with the fallout after a teenage boy, Erik, goes missing. Even when it comes to the gorgeous cinematography, which includes constant breathtaking shots of forests disappearing into fog, shadowy caves, and rain-drenched buildings, Dark literally lives up to its name. But while Dark, Netflix's first German-language original series, does indeed have all of those elements, it would be doing this wildly inventive show a disservice to reductively label it the German Stranger Things, as Dark has a chilly, mind-bending sensibility all its own.įrom the pilot's opening shot depicting a jarringly unemotional suicide to the mesmerizing opening credits (which are soundtracked by a song so haunting that my friend told me he skips the intro), it’s clear that Dark isn’t much interested in, well, lightness, or much of the nostalgic levity that punctuates Stranger Things' more ominous flirtations with the supernatural. With those details, it would be easy to assume I'm describing Stranger Things. Their parents, who have secrets of their own. A group of kids who stay out too late at night and venture to forbidden places. Lights that flicker ominously for inexplicable reasons.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |