Blackout - The memory is fatal
| Television series | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Blackout - The memory is fatal |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| year | 2006 |
| Production company |
Typhoon |
| length | 45 minutes |
| Episodes | 8 in 1 season |
| genre | Thriller |
| Director |
Peter Keglevic , Hans-Günther Bücking |
| script | Norbert Eberlein |
| production |
Marc Conrad , Kathrin Bullemer |
| music | Jürgen Corner |
| camera | Hans-Günther Bücking |
| cut | Barbara von Weitershausen |
| First broadcast | October 29, 2006 on Sat 1 |
| occupation | |
| |
Blackout - The memory is deadly is a German crime - miniseries from 2006. It is about a Berlin policeman who following an accident loses his memory and gradually the events that led to the death of his wife, can be reconstructed. Originally conceived in eight episodes, the station Sat 1 broadcast the series in four parts. She has received critical acclaim and awards. The audience ratings, however, remained well below expectations, so that the attempt to establish high-quality series based on the American model on German private television was rated as a failure.
action
Paul Novak is a drug investigator for the Berlin police . Immediately after he gave his wife a CD with explosive investigation results, she was gunned down. Novak causes a serious accident on the way to the hospital. His wife dies, he suffers severe head injuries, as a result of which he loses his memory. When he is released from the hospital, he does not recognize his brother Christoph Dermühl, whose family he is being taken in to care for, nor his son Finn. In particular, he has no memory of the events that led to his wife's death, and he struggles to reconstruct his past.
Meanwhile, his brother has problems of his own. He is running for the party of real estate speculator Volker Born for the Berlin Senate . Born hopes to gain political influence on major projects in the city, which he wants to finance through ominous donors such as the drug lord Hasan Arslan. In his criminal clan there are arguments between the long-established drug dealer Turgut Algan and the brutal newcomer Mehmet Ersoy. On Born's instructions, lawyer Dermühl ensures the release of two of Mehmet's dealers, who shortly thereafter kidnap and rape his daughter Lotta in order to punish her friend, the junkie Sebastian, for stealing. Born pressures Dermühl to withdraw Lotta's complaint. Dermühl gives in to the resistance of his wife and daughter, both out of fear of the power of criminals and in order not to endanger his political career.
Novak has since found out that he wasn't the heroic policeman when his son glorified him. Instead, together with his colleague Boris Schenker, he was bribed by the drug trafficker Turgut Algan and supplied with information that earned them the reputation of extraordinary search successes. Both were not popular with their colleagues, and Novak has to be told by his neighbor Carla Bräuninger that he was an unpleasant person before his accident. Schenker did not get over the unexplained disappearance of his daughter Kitty, which shattered his marriage and turned him into an unscrupulous cynic who, on behalf of Algan, liquidated opponents and murdered a colleague who found out about him. He introduces himself to the recovering Novak as a best friend, but secretly spies on him for Algan.
According to Novak, his wife was in Born's company headquarters at the time of the attack, and his brother Christoph was also there. He finds out that the politician had secretly held sex parties with underage prostitutes at which a woman was killed. He himself had spied on Born and recorded a video of the event, which is on the CD that Lili passed to a street preacher shortly before her death. With the recovered piece of evidence, Born can be tried and an underage prostitute identified as Schenker's missing daughter Kitty. But he doesn't hear about it anymore. He has finally cleared the table, confessed to his crimes, which also weigh heavily on Turgut Algan, and voluntarily conjured up a situation in which his opponent Mehmet Ersoy kills him in order to ruin the dealers with his death as well.
After the arrests of Born, Ersoy and Algans, Dermühl of all people rose to become the new left hand of drug lord Hasan Arslan. Novak, on the other hand, lures his wife's hit man from the reserve on a seemingly carefree park trip with his neighbor and his son, who is shot by a special task force before he can liquidate Novak. He acted on behalf of Turgut Algans, who wanted to punish Novak with the death of his wife for the planned withdrawal from his service. After Lili's death is atoned for, Novak's son Finn can finally feel safe again.
Production and broadcast
The concept of the eight-part TV series with the working title 8 Days was developed by the Hamburg writer and screenwriter Norbert Eberlein . It was offered to Roger Schawinski , the managing director of Sat 1 at the time, via Marc Conrad's production company Typhoon , and it fitted perfectly into the station's quality offensive launched in spring 2004. Blackout became the most ambitious series project of the station, which wanted to orientate itself with sensational productions on the American series market. However, initial test demonstrations showed that the complex and clear boundaries between good and evil transcending action was not well received by the target audience. Those responsible tried to counter this with color corrections in the film material and the broadcast as a double episode in the length of the feature film.
On the other hand, the journalists were consistently enthusiastic at press presentations. The broadcast of the series was not only advertised by the broadcaster, but also extensively journalistically supported in most of the program magazines. Nevertheless, the broadcast of the first two parts, on Sundays at 8:15 p.m., only achieved an audience rating of 7 and 6% respectively (after the supporting program Nur die Liebe Counts on Sat 1 was still 22%). As a result, the two remaining parts of the series were moved to the night hours, which earned the station angry reactions from the remaining audience. For Roger Schawinski, in retrospect, the series marked a fundamental mistake regarding the viewing habits of his audience. He compared the film with bait that the angler likes, but not the fish, which is also confirmed by the industry prizes awarded to him. The person responsible for the area Fiction Alicia Remirez commented: "We made only one mistake [...] We should never make this substance."
reception
Blackout received positive reviews in numerous media. The spectrum of reviews ranged “between benevolence and enthusiasm”. Christopher Keil wrote in the Süddeutsche Zeitung : “Sat 1 presents the most exciting drama series of the season and thus indicates what fictional storytelling could do”. Christian Buß paid those responsible in Spiegel Online respect for “a wonderful television event”. According to André Mielke in the world, it was "actually an event, a great television drama, and that on private television". The series creates “high tension not so much through pyrotechnics, chases or orgies of violence, but rather through sophisticated and concentrated dramaturgy, pointed dialogues and an extremely imaginative, but never mannered camera work. 'Blackout' is what a high-quality thriller should be, for the full six hours. "
Peer Schader called Blackout in the FAZ “an extraordinary production for German television with characters that are rarely seen. Losers, rip-offs, cardsharps and failed existences lurk everywhere, the story is exciting and told authentically. ”For Thomas Gehringer in the Tagesspiegel , the series proved“ that German television can also shine with its own (mini) series. 'Blackout' creates a suction that makes waiting for the next part an exercise of patience. The four-part series is brilliantly cast right down to the supporting roles. ”Peter Luley also joined in the taz :“ It's really remarkable what a gloomy pull this visually impressive genre saga unfolds right to the end. Here is once again an in-house production that Sat.1 can rightly adorn itself with. "
After the bad audience ratings became public, there was another wave of reports in the feature pages in which, for example, Christopher Keil in the Süddeutsche newspaper stated that “ratings and quality are becoming less and less common”. Michael Hanfeld stated in the FAZ : "If a story on television is not completed after forty-five or a maximum of ninety minutes and is therefore not reasonably easy to master, it no longer seems to get caught." Jürgen Egger spoke in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung of a "precedent [n] Quota accident for television Germany ", which means" the end of a whole generation of sophisticated, modern television material ".
Blackout and those involved have been nominated for various television awards, such as the Golden Camera . Roeland Wiesnekker was nominated for the best supporting role for the German Television Award and, like the editors Anne Karlstedt and Dorothea Goldstein, received a special award at the German Television Crime Award . Hans-Günther Bücking received the German Camera Prize for his camera work , Barbara von Weitershausen was nominated for editing.
Web links
- Blackout - The memory is deadly in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Blackout - The memory is fatal at fernsehserien.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Roger Schawinski : The total blackout . In: The time of August 16, 2007.
- ↑ a b metacritic “Blackout” . In: The television dictionary .
- ↑ The four-part event on Sat 1: Where the streets have no names . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung of October 27, 2006.
- ↑ Christian Buss : Koksnasen with badge . In: Spiegel Online from October 29, 2006.
- ^ André Mielke: monster without memory . In: Die Welt of October 26, 2006.
- ↑ Peer Schader: Why does everyone just want to see the Americans? . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of October 27, 2006.
- ↑ Peter Luley: Amnesia in the drug swamp . In: the daily newspaper of October 28, 2006.
- ↑ Alexander Krei: Consolation for Sat.1: Flop four-part "Blackout" can hope for the Golden Camera . On quotenmeter.de from January 11, 2007.
- ↑ Winner 2007 (camera) at the German Camera Prize .
- ↑ Nominated 2007 (editing) ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at the German Camera Prize .
