What were the biggest challenges in establishing the parallel world? If you're ready, you can also read our series finale recap and explainer. Season 1 was tricky enough, but midway through the second season you may find yourself needing to construct a character yarn board on your wall to remember everything that's happened, who the various actors are depicting at various intervals along the timeline, and when any given scene is taking place. When we got to the second season, we changed it again. Im still not sure about the percentage, but its probably 10 percent [of the mysteries] we are not goiong to answer just for the fun of it, but they will be smaller. Sign Up: Stay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news! We already have ideas for a second and third season on 1899, and it gets complicated. We put a dot, wait a little, and then we put a question mark at the end. But I dont want to fill those gaps. For a long time, even already in film school, we had this urge to change that, to really have characters from particular countries speak in their own voices, because language really defines character. Its over, Odar said. bo OdarI think we learned a lot to be honest, because it is a new tool. Especially with a show like Dark, which does close so many of those open loopholes, theres always a certain amount of desire to stay with those characters and see what happens after the turmoil has subsided. Science and religion clashed a lot. What happens when you have all these different cultural backgrounds, that are put into a space like this? Naturally, that's by design, and is something fans should look out for as they watch. "It's definitely an association that a lot of people have," Friese says. A key part of any ending is knowing the right cutoff point. Do I actually have free will? And then you try to find ways to incorporate it throughout the story.". [Friese laughs] I played weird music the entire day and it became this very weird experience for everyone. The season weaves together not only five or six different time periods, but also a second version of those time periods, and goes back even further in time and more years along the way. Our idea was always to do Greek tragedy below it even though its a sci-fi show, a mystery show, in its core, its really about human relationships and how fucked up they can be.. Finally we could do whatever we wanted with them. And the rest is just virtual in it, even with digital extras, which we used for the first time, which they didn't on Mandalorian. In the present, hes now Jonas father, who coexists in the same time period with young Mikkel. 2023 The Hollywood Reporter, LLC. They will never be able to overcome their inner longings, their ego. And then we try to find a world of symbols that all ties into our theme," she says. Then you start putting characters into that idea, but they might feel a bit one-dimensional, so you get some ideas for the plot and you work it in. Is it because it was a time of confrontation between technology and tradition? Through three seasons of Dark very little made. In constructing the visual representation of that Season 3 idea, Odar wanted to flip things literally, too. bo Odar: We dont have bad ideas. Im obsessed with history, seeing how everything is related to each other, seeing the reasons for things. You're crossing into a new century, stepping from something that feels old school to something new the future. They would go, God damn it! She also doesn't want viewers to expect to learn everything when the show ends. Jantje Friese was born in 1977 in Marburg, Germany. I think its great. It would have felt like selling our souls and not delivering on what we wanted to do [if we had more seasons]. For example, on Dark, the idea of the parallel universe was always planned to be in the second season. Berlin, Germany - May 3rd, 2021 -- Today Netflix and DARK WAYS, the newly set-up production company helmed by Jantje Friese and Baran bo Odar, announced the start of production for their highly anticipated new Netflix original mystery-series 1899. Like letting go of some love affair.. Its heart-wrenching and really put a lot of press pressure on Season 2. Ling Yi has a digital glitch in her arm, so clearly its something digital [at work on the ship]. Friese laughed and added, "'For a short moment in time, you visited a parallel world where you actually had success!'". But in the end, it turned out to be way easier than we thought, because theres a sort of universal language, without words, going on while youre communicating with someone. I think you have to watch carefully, because every little piece means something. No one is just evil because they want to be; everyone is reacting to their own hurts and wounds. In the Eliott Sumner version we use in the title sequence, the line that features so prominently is feed your head. That was such an important phrase for the entire show that it felt like the absolute right fit. Friese: It was absolutely the perfect amount. Then, of course, just like in Dark, we have a big philosophical theme at the center of it all about perception and reality. I went out with my large format camera and I was taking pictures of those locations like a fan. Although the show begins as the story of international immigrants on a steamship headed to America at the turn of the 20th century, by the end of the season we learn that the ship was a simulation, and our protagonists are actually on a spaceship in the year 2099. Then its really a lot of bouncing back and forth between the two of us at the beginning, throwing in random ideas in the beginning and trying to figure out what ideas actually stick. But it also means props-wise, you have to change a lot of things like books and bookshelves. Do Ellis Dragons Unstable Inventions Exist in Real Life? We always like to have an ending before we start. Where does he come from? ", But amid all the symbology and references to religion and philosophical theory, there is one very simple concept that unites it all: the notion of an immutable past that, quite literally, in this case, always catches up to the present, and in so doing, informs the future. It was really fun. Friese: Its a good thing because it helps you see who you are yourself. At the same time, the refugee crisis was happening in Europe [around 2015/2016] and it was a very unstable phase. No, I didn't,'" he said. Making a splash: A deep dive into the live-action, A strange mystery sets sail in beguiling sneak peek at, showrunner discusses the Netflix adaptation's story changes, The best crime movies on Netflix right now. I cant tell you exactly at what point; it wasnt in the first rough concept, but I think it was during the writers room on the first draft in Season 1, said Friese. Another part of the series that was touted when it was first announced was that 1899 would not be entirely in German, like Dark, nor would it be in any one language. "And we wanted to do a multilingual show that you treat all these different cultures with respect, and you don't just do it in English, or whatever language, and just pretend that they're all from these different cultures. We get that question a lot. We can see that even if you dont really understand what words are being spoken, you understand what the other person is trying to communicate. The other thing was really, What is German? What can we put out in the world apart from the Second World War which I still think is also in Dark, even though were not in the timeline. The 50 greatest TV and movie detectives of all time. So that is like five pages of conversation between the writer, the translator, the language expert: Here should they say tu or vous? It became a really complicated process. John Mulaney's New Netflix Special Is a Critical Reminder About Celebrity The ultimate example of that is Season 2s epic revelation that police chief Charlottes (Karoline Eichhorn) mother is actually her daughter Elisabeth (Carlotta von Falkenhayn) through more time travel shenanigans. It was really challenging for us in the third season to establish another world with maybe even other timelines, too. Then they were: No, no, we love it.. Having watched the first six episodes [of1899], it appears to be a bit less complicated thanDark. People write stories about the relationships between Aleksander and Regina, and stuff like that. "When we. bo OdarBut lets not forget thatDarkwas three seasons. You have to open doors with your left hand. How do people cope with situations when theyre not able to speak the same language? It always sounds to people like its easier to do a last season when you know where you going. Theres just an underrepresentation of the different European cultures, the different narratives from around the world. What stylistically are you going for with this show? I think we we focused on the stuff where we just personally felt it adds to the overall mystery and we need to deliver the ending. Instead, they came up with Dark.. As for fans of. Some of it was something that we developed throughout the process. Thats where plot structure goes. The Hollywood Reporter is a part of Penske Media Corporation. Friese: It was one of the things we always wanted to do. After that, it goes straight to the computer. Its just a nice nuance with which to end. It creates such a powerful illusion that, in the beginning, the crew and actors were actually getting seasick because the horizon was moving on the volume screen. this link is to an external site that may or may not meet accessibility guidelines. Whats the fundament of it all? Its not the kind of story that can be reworked and improvised on the fly with each passing group of episodes, as Friese can attest. It was so easy for them to just react. Its really mind-opening and I personally still read stuff and Im really blown away. That was the initial plan. bo Odar:When we spoke to the guys behindThe Mandalorian, we asked them what worked and what was really complicated. The first season is actually very simple: Its a small town, with kids disappearing, and then theres some time travel events in the cave. All these hints subconsciously or consciously trigger something in your head. How difficult was it for you, Baran, given that I assume you dont speak all, what, 10-12 languages your actors do? Friese knows the reason for his injury and eye patch, but wouldnt reveal what happened. And then while we were working on it, we decided to move it to the third season. Dark only really got complicated in seasons two and three. I just felt that was such a multilayered story. When women turn 40, their career dies down unfortunately. By the end of the second season, the timeline of Dark has become more of a time-web, with certain characters now able to hop back and forth through time without adhering to the 33-years rule, while other characters discover that certain people they meet are actually their own future selves. Netflix was even kind enough to share a 10-minute catch-up video in the week ahead of the final season's release. Jantje Friese (born 1977) is a German film producer and screenwriter known for co-creating the Netflix series Dark (2017-2020) and 1899 (2022) with her creative and romantic partner Baran bo Odar. Obviously, we were fighting for our own characters to to be heard, but then you just have to make choices.. You know it by the emotional state, how they are addressing you, their body language and everything. . Friese also warned viewers from making assumptions about certain characters, such as Jonas mother Hannah (Maja Schne), who has done rather unforgivable, selfish, and malicious acts throughout every timeline. The quote in the song from Emily Dickinsons poem, in the beginning, is really about experiencing all this weird shit going through your brain. All Rights Reserved. If seeing an entire reality flipped in the last season of Dark seemed jarring, know that it felt just as dissonant to the people helping to bring it to life. You can actually do something good by not being there so someone else can be lucky and happy. America So She Could Breastfeed Privately, Michael J. For me, its a very happy ending, realizing its not just about you all of the time. Do you view it as a happy ending? The 25 Saddest TV Character Deaths of This Century, According to Variety, about 90 percent of Darks audience comes from outside of Germany, and after the release of Season 1 in December 2017, Parrot Analytics noted that the show actually increased its viewership in its second week, mimicking the word-of-mouth viewership success of Stranger Things and Maniac., Its something you hope for, but it actually hit us really hard, said Friese. The Hollywood Reporter is a part of Penske Media Corporation. Was it always your intention to introduce multiple worlds from the outset? When we arrive at the start of Season 3, the big twist of Season 1 that main character Jonas Kahnwald is actually the son of Mikkel, the young boy who mysteriously vanished from 2019 and somehow ended up 33 years in the past seem quaint by comparison. Narratives or stories are always about human behavior and human connection. Well send you our daily roundup of all our favorite stories from across the site, from travel to food to shopping to entertainment. But were not going to solve every riddle because sometimes its funnier [that way]. We really try to be very true to our core audience, which just loves puzzles but also knows every code and every cultural reference. What it's like to film a show in multiple-languages. There are different sections in there in the beginning, I just put Post-its in so I can still rip them out again. Do you have a huge board on the wall with red yarn linking up various elements? bo Odar:Another good example is the word ambitious. "Because there are so many layers of science philosophy and metaphysics and spiritual stuff, and it was quite interesting to see that they are all actually talking about the same thing, just from different angles. On set, Odar had phonetic scripts to reference as he directed scenes, and language assistants would be standing by to make sure nothing got lost in translation. There are a lot of symbols throughout, a lot of referencing systems in terms of religion, mythology.. Sign up here for our weekly Streamail newsletter to get streaming recommendations delivered straight to your inbox. And that's the same here again, now with the pattern pyramid and the triangles. Related Is one powerful family to blame for the deaths of five people in the wilds of South Carolinas Lowcountry? Is this a hopeful note in your mind? Thats the beauty of storytelling. WithDark, the story is really so much about time, about using something linear and then making lots of knots, throwing it at the audience and getting them to figure out how to untangle it back into a more linear logic. Thirty-three years, the number [if you flip the first three around] is, combined, an eight. We didnt try to make it easier. But you keep checking: Is it still working with the theme or do you need to shift that a bit? Some of it, we knew. But now Im fine. The Best 36 LGBTQ Movies and TV Shows Streaming on Netflix Right Now Odar adds, "But is it the right one? Were hinting at that in the first season all the time that its a circle. [This story contains major spoilers for the final season of Netflixs Dark.]. Jantje Friese: We wanted to introduce the parallel world in the second season. These meet-cutes will bring on all the feels. "In every season there is what I always call a bridge. For example, if a stair goes from left to right, in the other world it would go from right to left. ", Someone at Netflix mentioned the volume tech, and Odar and Friese were very impressed by how it looked. Dark creators Baran bo Odar and Jantje Friese's highly-anticipated latest Netflix series 1899 has dropped an extended trailer, gifting more clues. All Rights Reserved. Because if you cannot express certain emotions through your language then theyre almost non-existent in that culture. We also decided to shoot that scene on the very, very last shooting day. Honestly, the most difficult people to find were women [older than middle age]. Baran bo Odar and Jantje Friese are absolute geniuses and have created an epic sci-fi story for smart people.they did not dumb it down at all even in the final season.the fact that this was an original idea and not based on a book etc gets them even more kudos.it's also obvious that they planned this entire story from the beginning and "And obviously, this will only happen if enough people watch, but the way that we approached development and how season 1 is ending, you kind of want to have another one. And in that script note, there would be a meta-conversation about language. The German creators of the cult mystery-thriller Dark forced their viewers to trust them. So you have 999. So its really that in going through the makeup process and trying to find out what you do with the hair and face. Baran bo Odar and Jantje Friese are pulling back the veil on their new puzzle box show. With all that in mind, they set out to make 1899, which follows the multicultural passengers of a migrant steamship heading west to leave the old continent, whose journey takes an unexpected turn when they discover another migrant ship adrift on the open sea. Its been quite a process getting to here. I went back three days after the end of shooting because I was really not feeling well, to be honest. In Season 3, the seventh episode is where we basically fill in all those last puzzle pieces. And, in 1899, even spouses would have addressed each other in a formal way when in a public place. That's how we laid it out as a plan, and let's see if the world agrees.". 1899, which made the TIFF Primetime Program Sometimes on set, the actors would deliver a really great performance, but they used the wrong hand. Making a splash: A deep dive into the live-action Little Mermaid with a new generation's Ariel. What other Easter eggs did you plant throughout the season? Your past is always pushing you into the direction you're going, while at the same time the future is pulling you. "We worked on a database where every scene is broken down under certain circumstances. "I gave that to a couple of actors and they all had the same experience. Usually, the foreground is the actor and then the background is what you have on the LED volume screen. Thats where we basically put the groundwork, going for deterministic time travel rules. Hannah reveals shes thinking about Jonas as a name for her unborn child. ", Her partner feels differently though. I think 95 percent of the shots are handheld to make it feel alive and wild. That was very fun. Even if the hair color is lighter or if they have freckles, then that kind of a hint. Netflix's Dark, the streaming service's first German-language original series, follows four families in a small town who become engaged, sometimes unwittingly, in a time-traveling battle between seemingly good and evil forces. "We do love challenges," Odar says with a laugh. We wanted to have this beautiful mix of voices and languages." Sign up for our Email Newsletters here. So where does the show go in Season 3? Get The Latest IndieWire Alerts And Newsletters Delivered Directly To Your Inbox. That's what we tried to do. We asked creators Jantje Friese and Baran bo Odar as many of those questions as we could. Per the official synopsis, what they will find on board will turn their passage to the promised land into a horrifying nightmare. Season 3 picks up almost immediate with what happened in the last moments of the second season finale, after a character named Adam (who is purportedly a much older version of Jonas) shoots Martha, Jonas' love interest (and, as he learns, also his aunt), and a Martha doppelgnger suddenly arrives, a la Doc Brown at the end of Back to the Future, to whisk him away. Friese: I think its something about growing up in Europe, or growing up as a German, when you consume entertainment, which, at least in our experience, is coming largely from Hollywood. Friese:Oh, absolutely. We thought: We really want to take a look at Europe, just take it, put it on a ship, in a confined space, with lots of ocean around, where you cant escape, and have like a little bit of an experiment, almost like a laboratory experiment. As we learn quickly in Season 3, the worlds are very similar but also slightly different, but time-travel is still in play and the other Martha and her world are still progressing toward the same world-shattering apocalypse that happened in Jonas' world. You see Adam blowing wind on the one world, and on the other, you see Eva blowing wind on the other world. "I think I personally read probably one hundred books or so over the course of the three seasons, and not only on the science stuff behind it, but also philosophical pieces, a lot of spiritual writing," Friese said. Speaking how we think French people would speak. One bad idea weve definitely said is not going to happen is that1899is related toDark. And we love to play with tools, because I think as a filmmaker, especially, you are like a child. 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And then the pandemic happens, the show was supposed to be shot in a very traditional way, where we would have gone to a water tank and we would have built ship set pieces and traveled to other countries to shoot scenes there and stuff like that," he says. Do you feel you have said all there is to say about these characters and this world? This series, like Dark, is a huge mystery, a mystery wrapped in an enigma. While the closing chapter features answers to some of those questions, the episode before that is the one that holds the key to more than a few loose ends that have been lingering for fans of the show. What kind of symbols do you use? We really want it to be a great experience for them and not make it too easy. Why set it at the end of the 19th century? It was not the new stuff that we added throughout the second season that was the hardest thing to tackle, it was really being true to where we wanted to go in the end.. We're way closer to America than we are actually to India. We wanted to end on something that looks normal. And thus, fans of this science fiction series can be found discussing Nietzsche and other philosophers, trying to unlock the shows themes of free will and fate, alongside the physics of time travel. The setting is a migrant steamship bound from Europe to New York, filled with immigrants all running away from something, none of whom, we quickly realize, are quite what they seem. Its what we love about this thing. So it was obviously challenging and not possible to do it in a traditional way. And more of your Drive to Survive questions, answered. [Editors Note: The following contains spoilers for Seasons 1 and 2 of Dark.]. Mysteries about characters allegiances or motives are hard to separate from their ties to family fates. Published Jan 26, 2023 There was much more to untangled in the criminally cancelled show. This, this Volume technology, is the beginning of a new era of visual effects. The series ends with a dinner party in the origin world. Baran bo Odar and Jantje Friese, the German creators of buzzy cult series Dark and 1899, have been tapped to develop a series. In terms of how long 1899 might run, Friese says the pair are trying their best to make it a multi-season show, but notes that "it depends on the viewers", as well as Netflix. The basic idea of Season 3 was something that we already had when we started. What happened in that period is that modernism clashed with old beliefs. What kind of trigger words do you use? ", It's kind of funny, given that it's basically a quantum theory lesson told entirely in German, that the show has become so popular. "It was really nice that [Dark] was so well received, especially because it is a very weird, complex show in general," Odar admits. So theres always a tone in the end, which all mean something different. It's Me, Margaret' to 'R.M.N. Was it a challenge for the actors themselves, who are often performing opposite someone whose language they dont understand? It should feel different, because you have this image of a big steamship going from Europe to America and immediately you think this must be the cube version ofTitanic. It could be a crying smiley face, or it could be a winking smiley face. We spoke to Dark co-creators Baran bo Odar and Jantje Friese about saying farewell to the series, the spiritual and mythological influences they crammed into the third season's eight episodes, and how in the world they managed to keep everything straight. For example the room number 1011 is binary code. I think thats really interesting. You dont need to see it on screen. There are all of these images, and even in dialogue, hints that give it away. One plus eight is nine. Release Calendar Top 250 Movies Most Popular Movies Browse Movies by Genre Top Box Office Showtimes & Tickets Movie News India Movie Spotlight. Influencers: Profiles of a Partnership 2022, How to Pitch Stories and Articles to IndieWire, Where to Watch This Week's New Movies, from 'Are You There God? It just looked pretty. So for all the fans out there: Sorry, there wont be any characters fromDarksuddenly appearing on the ship. Like if one stone starts to roll, and hits another and that ends up leading to the First World War. But we stumbled upon a picture of a man in a white shirt covered in blood, with a hammer in his hand and a really weird look on his face, standing on top of what looked like an old boat. We planted it everywhere, but no one saw it yet. So hopefully, ultimately, that is happening. Baran bo Odar:We told them from the get-go; it was already in the script. You can only stand here. Jantje Friese: We wanted to introduce the parallel world in the second season. [The German meaning is closer to unlikely to succeed.] When we got the notes back from Netflix on Dark, they said: Such an ambitious project. We thought they hated it. The ending, knowing where youre going is one thing, but then finding the ways to get there is really a whole different challenge, said Friese. "There was a huge pressure because, first of all, we never expected that kind of success, and then it grew season for season," Friese tells EW.

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