2 out of 5

I feel that I need to tread carefully whenever criticizing historical dramas, because I am not a student of history*, and may be judging things without the necessary context. At the same time, I think it’s fair to assess any story, drawn from truth or not, on how effectively it tells that story.

For Deutsches Haus – given the absolutely curious US title of The Interpreter of Silence (a change perhaps indicative of some of what I’ll end up criticizing) – that story focuses on Germany in the 60s, indirectly circling to the second Auschwitz trial held in Frankfurt am Main, which charged 22 lower-ranked officials for crimes against humanity for their involvement in the Holocaust concentration camps. Due to the decades’ separation since the first trial, and perhaps because of that trial centering on the senior officials, alongside a deeper dive I’m unable to properly represent into the post-war adjustments of the German and Polish populace, the younger German generation who had come of age after the Holocaust could potentially be living without much awareness of what happened – of what their parents might have been involved in, for example.

This is how Deutsches Haus does the aforementioned circling back around to the topic: Eva Bruhns (Katharina Stark) works as a Polish interpreter, and gets called in to work on the trial for the prosecution. Pleasantly distracted by a forever fomenting proposal from her on-again / off-again boyfriend Jürgen (Thomas Prenn), the life-lessons offered by her older sister, Annegret (Ricarda Seifried), and part-time work in her parents’ well-regarded, titular restaurant, Eva is initially excited by the frenzy of the trial, completely oblivious to its focus. Before her proper role begins, she chooses to sit in on the readings of the charges, chatting nervously with those around her, until silenced by what she hears. The Holocaust is a distant thing of the past to her, without much detail; the defendants had been, for general intents and purposes, allowed to insinuate back into public life and their families sit besides Eva in the crowd.

The setup is brilliant, if a bit heavy-handed in trying to depict the prejudice still very existent in the Germany of the era, and takes an angle on the war which hasn’t had as much screentime. Stark’s casting is a bit questionable later on, but her nervous smile is an excellent method of selling the discrepancy between her reality before and after learning about the war – essentially at the same time the audience is understanding the show’s focus.

Or… attempted focus.

The court proceedings, while I’m sure are plucked from facts, feel a bit slanted to sell the stacked odds the prosecution was up against – a bit of history I feel was not clarified in the show is that law at the time required the defendants to be charged only for crimes committed directly, and that couldn’t be said to be because they were ordered to so, which would be relegated to a lesser charge of ‘accomplice to murder’ – making the on-screen result that the lawyers all appear rather poor at their jobs, but setting that aside, these sequences are some of the show’s most compelling for the same reason, pulling apart the revisionist history from what happened, and how hard it was to prove something based only on testimony. Add to this Eva’s struggles as a translator, learning (as time goes on) the necessary vocabulary to properly communicate what some of the survivors are saying, and you can see what that aforementioned US title was going for – it’s a fascinating window not only into earlier eras’ laws, but also, very specifically, the cross-generational takes on the war in Germany.

Outside of this, writer / creator Annette Hess, also author of the book on which the show was based, tries to draw out the reverberating impacts of the past on the youth – on Eva, her sister, and her boyfriend – and pairs it against the survivors from whom we hear, as well as those existing somewhere between having been participants and survivors. This is absolutely rich material, but it’s quite a bit to deal with alongside the historical details, and the trial, and the show struggles with a tonal balance – wanting to maintain some light in the darkness, and also wanting to create grand arcs for all those mentioned, when any one thing would have been plenty for the five-episode series to tackle.

This is why I pointed out the English vs. German title: The German title makes perfect sense, The Deustches Haus restaurant as Eva’s emotional and physical “home,” changing shape as she learns more about the past, and her involvement with it. The English title also makes sense conceptually, but it’s way too overwrought for how the story is told, and how she – and her interpreting – ends up being rather peripheral to events. Everything in the show has a similar duality, which I’m not going to consider as a purposeful meta layer: rather, you have subplots which are sound on paper, given complex inner workings to make them more thematically linked, but then shuffled into the runtime in a way that does them disservice. The only storyline that can be said to have consistent beats throughout is Eva’s; the others come and go in ways that aren’t very satisfying, saving their “twists” for final moments.

The filmmaking, with direction by Isabel Prahl and Randa Chahoud, is similarly mixed. In general, the muted but warm cinematography from Andreas Köhler and Julian Hohndorf – actually a cold palette, but often framed intimately – is quite supportive of the emotional beats, but all of what I’m saying above about the way the focus strays is present, with half-committed artsy devices popping up out of nowhere, reaching for connection. Uncut dialogue when the charges are read; sudden speaking-to-the-camera moments; there’s a lack of consistency in application that undermines the effect, alongside the probably-better-in-the-book occasions which focus on Eva’s relationship, with discordantly buoyant music, and play up her youth. Well-acted and logical for her character overall, but distracting in context of the show.

Which will take me to my last criticism, which isn’t a very fair one: Stark does an amazing job for all that’s asked of her, making the shifts from her naivety and casual daily concerns to her growing worldly awareness seem natural, when the scripting doesn’t necessarily support it (and the fact that the show doesn’t clarify the timeline until much later – that this takes place over a year, when it seems like days!), but… the actress also has a seeming natural smirk which often makes her appear to be smiling, even when she’s not. This is maybe just personal, but it made it so difficult to parse her tone and expressions with this smile when she’s hearing horrific things during the trial. It was an immersion breaker for me throughout.

The story swirling in the background of Deutsches Haus is fascinating, and it’s a really under-utilized premise for the material. But it was too much to stuff into a relatively short series, and tries – in story, in visuals – to make everything have a bit too much of a beginning-middle-end throughline to sync with how history works.

*I beg any readers’ forgiveness for historical info I may have botched. I’m trying to focus more on the show’s content than its accuracy, and leave my commentary on that history to a minimum, but if I’ve stated anything in error regarding known facts, happy to make those edits.