Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Matthew Beard, Jürgen Maurer, Conleth Hill, Charlene McKenna, Amelia Bullmore, Michael Dangl, Josef Ellers, Till Firit, Aaron Friesz, Michou Friesz, Nikolai Gemel, Lucy Griffiths, Miriam Hie, Sunnyi Melles, Corinna Pumm, Krista Stadler, Felix Stichmann, Oliver Stokowski, Florian Teichmeister, Raphael von Bargen, Luise von Finckh.
Freud may be largely discredited as an authority about psychoanalysis today in some quarters, but it cannot be doubted that his work paved the way for the science to be seen in the modern world as a functioning, and indeed warranted way of healing the mind; it is only in the armour and weaponry of the control minded obsessive that the science is mocked, ridiculed, and scorned, as for some the act of melancholy or depression is founded in weakness, and must be shown to be the act of wanting attention and lacking self-efficiency.
The mind and the heart, intrinsically linked, and yet whilst we understand one, its functions, the way it behaves, the way it degrades over time, its sadness and its love, the other, the mind, is a mystery to us, we may as well explore the universe, scour every inch of surface of the ocean floor, for in time we will know more about life in the stars and in the trenches where cold water creatures dwell, than we will ever do about our minds.
Murder in mind, for the deed is never really formulated anywhere else but the dark recesses of the psyche, and whilst we see it in the cold light of day as a despicable act, one perhaps of savagery and instinct, calculated and abhorrent, it is quite often born out of a broken heart, and in the start of the second series of 90 minute films based on the books by Frank Tallis, the student of the teachings of Freud, the inestimable Max Liebermann, played with generous artistry by Matthew Beard, tackles another case of murder with Detective Rheinhardt, and whilst investigating the death of The Melancholy Countess, the subject of dream interpretation boldly asserts itself into the storyline, comfortably, sincerely, and without a whiff of rancour.
Directed by Robert Dornhelm and adapted by Steve Thompson, the opening episode of the three-part series of Vienna Blood is one that delves straight into the fires of psychoanalysis, the act of grief playing a huge part in the investigation, the sexual ambiguity, fetishism, transgender issues all weaving itself into the narrative against the background of early 20th Century Austro-Hungarian politics and how modern thinking was radically overtaking established thought.
The Melancholy Countess, is in itself a piece of beauty, for even in sadness there can be a flowering bloom of magnificence waiting to be unravelled, and as with such a script, one that is mindful of the scene it is trying to create, as well as the emotion it is attempting to convey, the series gets off to a bountiful, explosive, but also generous start.
Vienna Blood is a welcome return to television for the cast of this marvellously produced drama, and one that is not afraid to steer away from the bluster of many a detective series, and instead showcase the thought and reason behind such motivations; for in melancholy we reveal a truth about ourselves that others dismiss as purely indulgence of misery.
Ian D. Hall