Dignity

This is an heavily imagined rewriting of the days and weeks leading up to the flight of Paul Schäfer from the "Colony" he had founded in Chile after escaping criminal charges in Germany. Dead for many years, Shafer's legacy lives on in the many lives he shattered. Using invented characters, it recounts, partly in flashback, the horrors of life in the colony where abuse of children was rife as detailed in the series.

The colony, set up as a charitable association, performed this role for the surrounding area with its hospital and educational facilities. However, it was a front for a cult centred on Schäfer as God's representative on the one hand and a conduit for illegal arms transfers alongside torture and abuse on the other.

In the series a dogged prosecutor and a cop take on the power of the colony still protected by powerful men left over from Pinochet's rule and for whom it had "disappeared" hundreds of people. We know from history that Schäfer was ousted, so the thrust of the plot leads to that end via many a twist and turn.

It's worth a watch even though much doesn't ring true. Why weren't the goodies, who had no protection and were living openly, simply bumped off? Nonetheless, I saw it through to the end and wasn't sorry.

Colonia Dignidad was a very dark chapter in the German and in the Chilenean history. We should handle this topic with respect, not as an interesting idea for a fancy fake story. It is filmed good, the actors play quite well, but still there is the sad feeling about endless fake facts smearing dirt on this serious history.

It's a good story but as has been said by others here it's far too long and slow. It could have been told in a few less episodes with less useless background noise which did nothing to drive the plot. Also some of the acting was wooden and just looked artificial, even groanworthy at times, such as one of the main detectives who kept smiling a truly ghastly smile all the way through. The 'brother' Pedro needs to take more acting lessons. The most unconvincing character in the entire series.

Nevertheless, I watched it all the way through just to see a decent enough conclusion and a hopefully happy one.

If you want to loose your precious time, that´s the show. Horrible

It's amazing to see that the streaming channel Walter Presents is still in operation. This channel seems to look for all the second rate or failed TV series in Europe and rebroadcast them. Dignity, is no exception to this. The story is told by constantly changing timelines that lead to total chaos and confusion for the viewer. The scenes are non-linear, just stuck together randomly. Some scenes just seem to have no relation to the one before or the one after. As with many European productions, the actors tend to stare at one another for prolonged periods, or just stare into space. The series really does very little to tell this important story.