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ARD series "Parliament": Scenes from European processed cheese

2020-09-29T16:42:20.374Z


Isn't the everyday life of MEPs in Brussels too dreary for good TV entertainment? The ARD proves the opposite with Christiane Paul in the ludicrously amusing political satire "Parliament".


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Christiane Paul as "Ingeborg": You can't behave in a more extreme way in France.

Photo: Jo Voets / WDR

A young man approaches the European Parliament building in Brussels.

It's his first day as a parliamentary assistant.

His future boss, a Belgian MP with a lot of worries, wants to describe the building to him and says that it looks like portioned processed cheese when you look at it from above.

Thereupon the newcomer notices that he is not approaching from the air, but from the ground.

It is a thoroughly superfluous dialogue, on the verge of the absurd - and the perfect introduction to the world of the European Parliament.

The routine evocation of Europe's growing role is part of everyday political life.

Only together do the states of the EU have a chance to assert themselves to some extent in a globalized world order, that is actually clear to all enlightened contemporaries.

But the subject is not really funny.

When the cue is heard, the good mood seems to escape, and everyone pushes through to fight the growing fatigue.

Among many other things, this is due to a cultural gap: the national film and television producers work for their national market or do crime novels - but a European dimension, a specifically European setting of topics is the exception, because you don't want to be bored.

Boredom, which continues to develop mainly because there is so little to laugh about about Europe.

Those who want to watch European series will rarely find what they are looking for with the state or public service providers of the countries, here the American platform Netflix often proves to be the most convenient alternative.

That's why you're just amazed at the first few scenes of "Parlament", a European production under French leadership.

It is a quickly told series with short episodes that aptly depicts the political context without getting lost in details.

Three young people are introduced - a French, a German and a British - who work as best they can for their respective MPs and their political advisers.

Rose, the British, was hit particularly hard.

She is sitting in the anteroom of a cheerful Brexiteer MP and therefore logically has nothing to do.

So she kept typing the sentence "Brexit means Brexit".

Love bonds could develop among the three assistants, but nothing is easy in Europe.

The young Frenchman, whom we get to know right from the start, gets involved with a young Swede who turns out to be amazingly right-wing extremist: When she once had to hide in the bathroom from curious colleagues who unexpectedly came into the room during a wild smooch with him, she is happy afterwards: she felt like Anne Frank.

The German assistant is complicated in many ways, not least from a sentimental point of view: he considers himself homosexual, but not gay, rather he feels like a lesbian woman.

He later also denies that Strasbourg is in France, because that's where you can buy pretzels and where you can get them is Germany.

The hellish complexity of fishing

Germany is embodied in a terrifyingly comical way by Christiane Paul, she is Ingeborg, a political advisor who, it is said, even fairy tale witches get nightmares about.

She is portrayed as an accomplished power machine, a homage to the Chancellor, who in Europe is wondering how she always manages to prevail in the end.

Memorandum: "Sausages are there to eat, Ingeborg is there so that she can get what she wants"

The biggest hammer for the French: She meets for a meeting in the parliamentary restaurant, but when her French guest is about to order, Ingeborg declares the meeting over - you can't behave more blatantly in France.

"Parliament" shines through exaggerations and observations of such inaccuracies.

Actually, they're all pretty bad, but in a very amusing way.

The political process in the series is about an ordinance to protect sharks.

A good thing.

Except that nobody likes sharks, the critters play a complicated role in the European fisheries structure and actually every other topic is more important.

Europe is caught between the lofty idealism of the project and the hellish complexity of fishing.

Every country is made fun of with all the force of stock clichés, but the witty script and the excellent cast make "Parlament" a comical sensation and pure joy.

A second season is in preparation.

"Parliament":

From September 29th in the ARD media library, from October 6th on One

Source: spiegel

All life articles on 2020-09-29

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