By Adam Ruhl
I spend a lot of time talking to anyone who will listen
about movies and TV shows. Friends, Family, people on the street, I mean it
when I say anyone. Often, I’m talking about entertainment not from this country.
You would be amazed how many people’s eyes glaze over when the word ‘foreign’
comes into play. For some, they have a fixed mental image of foreign films;
black and white, artsy, boring. Others have no patience for subtitles, if they
wanted to read they’d get a book.
If you've read any of my postings you know that I love international
cinema. Many of my reviews on PCB are devoted to films from other nations. I’m
delighted at how much more material is being released in the US these days.
MHZ Home Entertainment has gone one better. They are
releasing wonderful international television shows on DVD in America. They most
recently have released ‘The Spider’ from Denmark, and ‘Crime Stories’ and ‘Kennedy’s
Brain’ from Germany. I’ll be reviewing all three over the coming weeks starting
today with Crime Stories.
Crime Stories
Crime Stories is a six part mini-series based on the
collection of short stories called simply ‘Crime’ (or Verbrechen) by Ferdinand
von Schirach. Reading the back of the box I thought I knew everything that was
going to happen in this series. On the surface, its description, a lawyer
defending clients from a variety of charges, sounds just like any American
court procedural. However, when I watched the series I was blown away by an
incredibly unique show that left me guessing what would happen next.
The show is set around defense lawyer Friedrich Leonhardt
(Josef Bierbichler) as he meets with clients. He actually has relatively little
screen time in the series and is more of a connecting thread in the episodes
than a main character. That’s part of what’s so fresh here is that there is no familiar
formula to be found. Completely missing is the standard walk of the accused
through red herrings towards final judgment. Gone is the concept that good guys
are all good and bad guys are all bad and bad is always punished.
Instead we feel like we are walking with the characters
through their lives. We see the back-story and lead up to the crimes. They are
complex personalities and we can understand their motivations. This raises an
element of ‘what punishment actually fits this crime?’ that I found particularly
thought provoking.
The stories are character driven and without the familiar three-act
layout Crime Stories can feel light on plot. This turns out to be a very good
thing; this is a show where anything can happen and I found it very difficult
to guess what was next.
The cinematography is first class and the editing has all
the modern quick cuts and jump aways. The show is from Germany so there’s also
a bit more nudity than an American non-cable household is used to. There’s also
a curious recurring theme about apples. It’s on the cover and they make an appearance
in each episode but if there was an explanation I must have missed it.
The set itself comes on three discs in a standard DVD case,
no other bonus features on the disc. There are only English subtitles, they’re
burned into the image and cannot be turned off. I really wish MHZ would put
this out on Blu-ray because its available that way in Germany and its clearly
filmed in Hi-Def. In spite of the slim disc offerings, Crime Stories is an
amazing piece of work worth checking out.
Crime Stories is available right now on Amazon.
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