Between 2017 and 2020, director Baran bo Odar and author Jantje Friese thrilled mystery fans around the world with the first German Netflix series “Dark”. The whole world was now all the more enthusiastic about the start of their follow-up project “1899” – which was accompanied by a correspondingly large and exhaustive promotional tour. Nevertheless, Odar and Friese took the time to personally visit our Berlin office and talk in more detail about their new “baby” with both FILMSTARTS and the Moviepilot colleagues who are also based here.
We took the opportunity to quiz the duo on the challenges of the mystery genre, the appeal of tear-jerking, and the refreshingly rare sense of humor in their series. – and to accuse them of the fact that thanks to them and a particularly dark scene in “1899”, FILMSTARTS editor Markus is now afraid of the anthem “The thoughts are free”…
Baran bo Odar: I’ve always found that a negative number.
Jantje Fries: Me too. And it just fits the theme really well. In my teenage theater group, we sang the song in a production about the life of Georg Büchner, although none of us could sing. And I don’t know if the play was any good either. The song is absolutely dear to me.
Baran bo Odar: It has one of the most beautiful German lyrics, whether poetic or sung. But I always have an image in my head: five people tied to a wall, in front of them the battalion with the guns, and one of them starts singing this song before they are then shot. Therefore, for me it has a rather negative connotation, albeit with a rebellious message.
Jantje Fries: There’s a bit of indoctrination about it – in a good way. (laughs)
futile escape
Baran bo Odar: I have a personal connection to the story because my family has always been an emigrant family. That goes way back. My grandfather had to flee Russia and everyone but him was killed. I have an uncle who emigrated to America when he was 17. My father emigrated to Germany. That’s why I always carry the subject with me. In general, I have no sense of home. I have Turkish and Russian roots, I was born in Switzerland but grew up in Germany. And I never felt like I was getting anywhere. And that’s exactly what I like.
Jantje Fries: That’s not quite the case with me. I feel a special connection to my hometown as I get older, but that doesn’t mean I’ll ever move back there. But I just notice how my homeland has influenced me and made me who I am.
The emigrant aspect or this wanting to flee, on the other hand, has something very interesting psychologically for me. There are always times in life when you want to give up everything. The interesting thing is that running away doesn’t help. You always take your baggage, your dissatisfaction, your problems, your fears with you and you don’t change as a person – wherever you go. And that was exactly the question here: what do you actually take with you when you fly?
Jantje Fries: The story is much, much older. Even before Dark we had a first draft for 1899. It looked very different, because you always go through a long process before you know what you actually want to say. We pitched the current concept to Netflix after the first season “Dark”, who loved it. And then it was already a mystery project.
Baran bo Odar: But a lot has changed. It has crossed many genres and was never purely a historical drama. There was always something special in it. We just think genre is good for posting bigger topics and packaging philosophical questions in a fun way. If the genre only serves the plot, it’s kind of boring. “Dark” also has a superstructure and something philosophical. What does time mean and what does it actually do to you if time is not linear? And we pitched that to a small town of four families to see how a private person would deal with something like that.
With “1899” it was a similar process. We approached the basic idea with the emigrants and their dark past in a rather playful way, to see where we actually want to go with it. But that is mainly a conversation between Jantje and me. In doing so, we stumbled upon another important philosophical-scientific idea that we found exciting – and we just added it. Once you mix at least two things that might be unrelated, we get really creative – or at least we think so. We just love genre mixes. And not at all because it’s cool to mix comedy with horror or something like that, but because it reinforces the theme.
The secret of a good mystery series
Jantje Fries: This is actually the hardest of all. These are also questions we often received with “Dark”: how did you manage to tell it like that?
Lost
Baran bo Odar: The ending of “Lost” itself is actually great. It just came too late, precisely because there were already many fan theories in this direction. There was disappointment because it ended up being resolved the way many thought it would be for the past three seasons.
Jantje Fries: And then there were so many things that didn’t fit anymore. It was more the problem that it was so stretched. Still, it’s an incredibly good series.
Jantje Fries: We ourselves are of course on a different side with our series. We know how it works linearly. We know the chronology, just take the whole thing and tie it neatly. (laughs) And then we’ll see how it unravels. That is now also the case with “1899”. We know much, much more than what we release in the first information season. The whole is again designed for three seasons and that gives you enough space to solve the mysteries. But you do need to know where you want to go in the end. Because the end is always the driving force behind the beginning. Otherwise, you’ll get lost and it won’t feel organic anymore. But this information management is really the most complicated. When do I provide which information? How much information can I withhold and for how long?
Jantje Fries: But it also differs from viewer to viewer who needs what kind of information rate. You cannot say: this is the formula, you have to do it this way and that way and then everyone will be satisfied. There are always people for whom it is too confusing, too slow or too fast.
Self-mockery: none!
Jantje Fries: Humor is very often used as a tool to ensure that the filmmaker does not show the vulnerability of taking everything too seriously. While this is a very interesting tool, it sometimes breaks the story or immersion a bit. Maybe that’s why our things are so dark and serious. But that’s exactly the feeling we’re looking for when we look at something ourselves.
Baran bo Odar: I actually find the coal bunker boys quite funny. But yes, only two or three times something funny happens.
Baran bo Odar: And I agree with Johnny. For example, a Tarantino uses humor to justify the violence. He has the idea that everyone is tearing themselves apart. But he can’t just do that, because otherwise he will be accused of glorifying violence. That’s why he brings such a playful lightness.
Jantje Fries: It always depends on what you say.
Baran bo Odar: The phrase was also spoken with pleasure on the set.
The creators of “1899” and “Dark” in the Moviepilot Podcast
In our interview, Baran bo Odar and Jantje Friese mainly describe their very personal bond with their new mystery story. After our conversation, they both appeared on the Moviepilot podcast Streamgegefuehl, to talk more specifically about the contents and secrets of “1899” itself. You can listen to the exciting result here: