A few years ago it was said that the series would reinvent storytelling – and somehow that’s true. With many series that babble on the streaming portals, however, one can argue about whether the endless rolling out of little action is a new narrative form that is particularly worthy of preservation. Sure, being able to watch an entire season of a show in a couple of days has an impact on the narrative—but there are factors in storytelling that remain unchangeable. Seen like that The Tourist – Duel in the Outbackco-produced by ZDF with the BBC and HBO, is a prime example of how it can be done: Made for binge watching, but wonderfully traditional in some respects.
What is different about it than before? You don’t really get what it’s about for at least two episodes out of six. Starts out like a Steven Spielberg remake duelcontinue like memento and then soon drifts into Fargo-territory- The Tourist is kind of a thriller, but the patience to sit down every week and find out what kind – hardly anyone on linear television would have had that. A little hint: The background music, old, love-drunk swing, sometimes just as love-drunk pop songs, give it away – basically has The Tourist a romantic component. And of course, the nameless tourist has no clean record.
Actress Danielle Macdonald pulls off a masterpiece with the village policewoman
Jamie Dornan as Christian in Fifty Shades of Gray famous, most recently in Kenneth Branagh’s great Civil War drama Belfast plays the unnamed tourist who drives through the Australian outback in the first episode – and then gets pushed off the road by a truck. He wakes up in the hospital with no idea who he is or how he got here. The village police officer Helen (Danielle Macdonald) is determined to help him. Suspense is best when there are characters viewers can lay their hearts on – and Macdonald pulled off a masterpiece with Helen. She seems a bit strange at first and then develops such a disarmingly good-hearted charm – you don’t even want to ask how far exactly the woman can actually race through the outback on a single tank of fuel.
Helen, a probationary cop, has internalized so much throughout her life that she can’t do anything and is nothing, that she doesn’t even realize how mean her fiancé Ethan is to her, until he finally says that nobody like her wants anyone but him to have. She really wants to lose weight, and there she sits in the support group, wide-eyed, and describes to the others who don’t give a damn how she feels: If she doesn’t lose weight, she thinks she’s ugly and a loser, whatever If she does, then she has given in to an ideal of beauty. And is a loser. This woman is so good-natured and honest and quietly smart that she’s the only thing that makes you want to find out what this guy is that she’s trying to save because she thinks she can uncover the good in him.
The Australian outback is a harsh world, it is indeed part of this story, and the magnificent images underpin and fuel it: beautiful and menacing, the weather unexpectedly changes from sunshine to sandstorms, and the plains constantly create the illusion of infinite vision , without recognizing anything in the distance. In the end, Helen is far from tying up all loose threads – there is still enough left for a second season, which the BBC has already announced. The main thing is that Helen is back. without her would be The Tourist only worth half.
The Tourist, ZDF, six episodes, weekly from Monday, 10:15 p.m. and in the ZDF media library.
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