“The distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.” — Albert Einstein
Dark Netflix series is a German masterpiece that should have been given more love in my opinion. This series is like a buffet of flavors, it is fully packed with mysteries, mind-bending twists, and time-traveling plots. The series started with a suicide of Michael Kahnwald that is the father of the main character Jonas Kahnwald. From there, mysterious events happened after one and another in a small fictional German town of Winden. Audiences are brought into the rabbit hole of the problem that involves a few key families in Winden.
I can categorize this series as a mess. It can be not an easy watch for an average viewer, but it is a worthy viewing experience. As a dedicated viewer to the series, I even cannot say I can grasp everything in a jiffy. In the beginning, in S1 it can be quite overwhelmed. There’s a lot of characters, a lot of different faces and at different ages to remember, so that you able to connect the dots between them to get the whole coherent story. But trust me, this will help you a lot to enjoy this series in the long run that has a lot of mind-blowing twists and turns, especially in the season finale.
The season finale can be felt a bit rush as the new theory was proposed to the audience before they put everything into a closure. I just wish that they put a few more episodes in the final season and put more time to refine their final production to perfection. This handicap, however, does not change my opinion on how this series is still as amazing as a whole. Their dedication to carefully set every detail to complement the story should be praised.
There are some scenes that I need to replay or pause for a brief moment to understand what they actually mean throughout and I think this can be quite an effort for some, but it still fine if you’re not doing it, as you can find abundant of explanations on the internet later on. I can promise you it is really worth it! Although I said earlier that this series is a mess, that for me is an orderly mess. They have been really careful about every detail of what they put into the story. Most questions that have been raised while watching the series were answered. Every answer unraveled to beyond our expectations. I find that some clues are rather played as red herrings to the audience who is too invested in this (guilty as charged).
The charm of Dark shrouds from the few concepts that brought to us, as for example the mysteries that revolve around the cause and effect of the time travels by a few key characters. They displayed the consequences of messing with the timeline is very much like messing with relationships where the line of both time and emotions can cause an unwelcoming disaster. They ridiculed us by presenting the concept of duality in the story but at the same time, they oppose it which leaves the audiences baffled and confused. This way of presenting complicated things to us, then challenged what we just learned was misdirected really a brilliant deceives for us, the audience.
The consistency of using the dark color palette in the whole series (for the future timeline especially) creates a fitting mood for the series which is gloomy and dark in nature; this consistent to lives up to its title. This also makes Jonas the main character stands out in the series which he always donned a yellow raincoat in most episodes. They use a great camera play throughout the series too like the transitions between timeline, character sequences, and also the color palette for every timeline are different between another too. Perhaps the arrangement of things between reality is used to differentiate them. They also have a great selection of songs and the soundtrack played to put the right somber mood for some important scenes (this is Dark series, it must be dark everywhere, deal with it!).
The acting from every actor and actress is better if compared to Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver in the Marriage Story (haha). I personally never watched a German series before, hence all these actors and actresses are strangers to me. However, they played a fantastic job to bring the characters alive and not bland. Their acting also complements the script that is also amazing. Filled with a lot of philosophies thrown out in the script, it really challenges your intelligence from their wittiness. In fact, there is a great play of similar script for Season 1 and Season 3 but performed in different situations and reality. It is not lazy, but brilliant.
In my opinion, Dark Netflix should really be in your watchlist, especially if you are a time-traveling nerd, mystery lover, and just a masochist who loves to be mentally tortured. I can say for those who had watched the series, let’s watch again to find all the Easter eggs that we missed earlier which already hinted for what will happen in the end. I personally put this series as my top 5 series in the past 5 years. You can watch it on Netflix of course, you can choose English subtitles or English dubs. Enjoy!
My verdict 9.5/10
