Oktoberfest: Beer & Blood

Amazing production and acting. But as most German shows, you never feel attached to any of the characters. It's missing the "I care" factor. Why should I care about any of them? They are not appealing and so the show gets boring and pointless.

So this series is based on true events surrounding Oktoberfest. The pace was really good and didnt felt boring at any point. But as the title suggests its a lot of beer and blood; literal blood bath as the characters strive to find their spot on the Oktoberfest.

Peaky blinders German edition! Acting,directing,cinematography superb! Artistic Post production. A real gem!

...but it's pretty entertaining and an easy watch in just six episodes. The producers take some bare-bones history of the 1900 Munich Oktoberfest and gussy it up with Peaky Blinders-style violence, sex and gloriously squalid settings (as others note, production values are top notch). The storyrunners do a good job of closing off most of the plot lines by the final chapter but things end on a somewhat ambivalent note - keeping the door wide open for season 2. And please, watch it in German with subtitles - and maybe have a lager while you do.

...and this is the most luscious, condensed, fun to watch account of how it could have been when the former "quaint and grubby" Wiesn turned into gigantonomy, something utterly reflective of an industrial age reaching an early fruition point.

The depiction of typical Bavarian-style exclusionism on the one hand, sociability on the other is spot on. An endeeringly raw, crude, diverse look at the changing-of-the-guard unscrupulousness that marked the turn of the last century. While some performances seem strangely (purposefully?) over- or underacted, some story beats a bit oversimplified, overall level of production, direction and acting is spectacular, especially for a German production.

Grumpy critiques in the vain of "well, that's not how it was" would be mistaking verissimilitude for truth. This is fiction at its best, grandiose, pompous, an exuberant bouquet of fascinating characters.

The show will move to netflix in a few months where predicting an international mega success would be no witchcraft.