Shadowplay is a vivid portrait of a complex place

In a city where you could consider yourself lucky if you weren’t raped, this vivid drama explores the depths of human failings.

“Not raped, not dead – lucky.”

There’s not a lot of luck to go around in 1946 post-World War II Berlin and the threshold for being lucky is distressingly low. There are no jobs and even those stealing for survival have run out of things to pilfer.

The crime rate is alarmingly high but the cobbled together police force have only chair legs for weapons – under the rules, Germans can’t carry guns.

With three powers – the Americans, the Russians and the British – all jostling for power in a prelude to Cold War dynamics, it’s a lawless city where the weak, which is almost everyone, are at the mercy of the largely uncaring.

And then there’s a serial killer torturing and murdering suspected Nazis while the city swelters in the unforgiving heat.

It’s a lot but that’s the world of Shadowplay, a stylish and compelling eight-part drama series starring Taylor Kitsch, Nina Hoss, Michael C. Hall and Sebastian Koch.

It’s shoot first, ask questions later in post-WWII Berlin.

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Max McLaughlin is a New York City cop on secondment in the American sector of Berlin to help professionalise its police force, run by Elsie Garter (Hoss). He learns that there is much more to Berlin than he suspected, from street kids smashing his head in, to the presence of an organised crime lord nicknamed the Engelmacher (Koch).

But Max has another agenda. His brother Moritz (Logan Marshall-Green) went AWOL after the war and Max is desperate to find out what happened.

Over at the American embassy, diplomat Tom Franklin (Hall) is playing a dangerous game with the British and the Russians, teasing the tensions that would divide the world over the next four decades.

Meanwhile, his wife Claire (Tuppence Middleton) is interested in more than the affections of her husband.

German actor Nina Hoss is the highlight of the series.

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Berlin is a quagmire with rich narrative potential, almost all of which Shadowplay try to exploit. If anything, it’s a little overstuffed with one too many subplots. Juggling that many story elements usually means one strand is left under-serviced.

Still, the ambition is there and the gorging narrative is far from a dealbreaker given its curiosity in piecing together how the world came to be what it is - what Faustian bargains were struck, and why are they so unwilling to change?

Created by Swedish writer Mans Marlind (The Bridge), Shadowplay is a tenacious series that has much to recommend it, the least of which is the always welcome presence of Hoss.

German actor Hoss always brings gravitas and sensitivity to anything she takes on and in Shadowplay, Elsie’s mix of grit, virtue and faith in something better in a morally tainted world makes her the real audience surrogate rather than Max.

And seeing Hoss among the streets of a bombed-out Berlin in the immediate aftermath is even a familiar sight after her extraordinary turn in 2014 German film Phoenix. For Hoss alone, Shadowplay earns its place on a watchlist, but there’s more to it than one performance.

With its handsome production values and exploration of the dark depths of human failings, Shadowplay is a vivid portrait of a complex time and place.

Shadowplay premieres on SBS and SBS On Demand on Thursday, March 4 at 8.30pm

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