Der Pass Season One (2019) Review
Der Pass Season One (2019) Review
When a gruesomely staged, dead body is found in a mountain pass in the Alps near the German-Austrian border, two detectives from either side are brought in to investigate. Not only are they from two different countries, they are worlds apart in their careers…German detective Ellie (Julia Jentsch) embraces the case as the first real challenge of her profession, while her Austrian counterpart Gedeon (Nicholas Ofczarek) is jaded and seems to have lost any ambition.
They soon discover more crime scenes with symbolically posed victims, which appear reminiscent of pagan rituals. Are they all part of a much bigger, sinister plan? Ellie puts herself under increasing pressure to try and understand the deranged murderer’s motives so she can stop them killing again, and as the hunt goes on the detectives are drawn deeper into the dark valleys and archaic Alpine customs – and the paranoid world of the killer.
Der Pass initially makes for an utterly compulsive binge-watching treat. There are nerve-tingling moments of high tension that are on a par with the very best thrillers and the performances are exceptional especially from Julia Jentsch and Nicholas Ofczarek. For the first four episodes (of eight) I was completely gripped however at the midway point I found my interest beginning to wane. It remained watchable but no longer had that ‘must-see’ thrill that it kicked off with. Why? I’ll explain.
Der Pass started off feeling like a breath of fresh air, an adult thriller that could actually thrill, that didn’t feel like another generic by-the-numbers offering. With terrific cinematography, that captures both the beauty and harshness of the lush cold landscape its set against, and a plotline that taps into the Krampus legend there was a freshness to proceedings that put this series head and shoulders above the ample competition. Unfortunately Der Pass flicked into autopilot and transformed into a lesser beast, which ended up aping other serial killer stories, the main one being David Fincher’s excellent Se7en (1995).
Fincher’s classic movie features a killer looking to make a profound effect on the world by holding up a mirror to society and showing us its ills through intricately staged killings. Der Pass has the same thing going on with its psychopath, although not by going through the seven deadly sins as Se7en’s John Doe does, and after awhile that similarity nulled the effect of watching this. Perhaps the makers were aware of the similarity as Hans Zimmer’s score does appear to ape Howard Shore’s gloomy musical accompaniment to the Kevin Spacey-starrer. By having an unscrupulous journalist in the mix hardly helps matters when it simply reminds you of a similar character in Red Dragon/Manhunter.
This eight-part series was produced by the Academy Award-winning Max Wiedemann and Quirin Berg (The Lives of Others) and won the award for Best TV series at Austria’s ROMY TV Awards and quite rightly so. It’s well made, superbly acted but for a hardcore genre fan like me it also ended up feeling generic, I’d seen the same done before and done better.
