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Month: July 2018

“Three Identical Strangers”–Triplets and Eugenics

Three Identical Strangers raises difficult questions about how a 1950’s and 60’s psychological study was never made public, even to this day. Much of the data and conclusions remain unclear. In this study by respected psychologist Peter Neubauer,  unsuspecting subjects were parents and their adopted sons who were systematically studied and tested. The abuse of power, lasting two decades in the name of science, is the underlying theme of Three Identical Strangers. Neubauer himself died in 2008 and bequeathed over sixty boxes of interviews, film footage and other raw data to Yale...

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La Mante–The Praying Mantis

This  must-see French suspense thriller focuses on   an imprisoned female serial killer, recruited to help solve a string of copycat murders, but only if her son, Damien, now a policeman, works with her on the case.  The mother is nicknamed “La Mante”,  the praying mantis. First, it may be helpful to understand the biological nature of the praying mantis: the female camouflages herself and often ambushes the males and eats them live. The levels of tension just increase from the beginning till the end as the viewer watches the stalking and the violent killing. All victims in La Mante...

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Babylon Berlin–The Fragility of Democracy

Adapted from the best-selling detective novels by the German author Volker Kutscher, the highly praised Babylon Berlin begins less than ten years after the Treaty of Versailles. Germany is in turmoil. (Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party would come to power in 1933.) Set in the golden ’20s (1926-1929), Berlin is not so golden for everyone. The Nazi takeover is still a couple of years in the future, but the general turmoil is already evident. Babylon Berlin is part period drama, part police procedural, and part mystery thriller, but there is always an undercurrent of intense foreboding, drawing...

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Marcella –Battling Inner Demons

  Promoted as a Scandinavian noir detective series on the streets of Britain, Marcella is written and directed and produced by Swedish screenwriter Hans Rosenfeldt, creator of The Bridge. Two seasons on Netflix, Marcella  delves into the psychology of a deeply troubled London detective. In Season One Marcella Backland (Anna Friel) investigates a cold case involving a serial killer who appears to have become active again. At the same time Marcella also has to deal with her disintegrating personal life, where her husband, Jason (Nicholas Pinnock), has made the decision to leave her and take...

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“Man in an Orange Shirt”–Thwarted Love

  Man in an Orange Shirt, commissioned by BBC to celebrate the 50th anniversary of partial decriminalization of homosexuality in 1967, depicts with a modicum of success two love stories spanning seventy years. The first between two gay men hiding their passion and the second involving a duplicitous marriage of one-sided passion. Scripted by novelist Patrick Gale and partly autobiographical, Man in an Orange Shirt revisits prejudice and its impact on all. Spanning three generations in one family, –from wartime Great Britain to the present day,– Man in an Orange Shirt uncovers...

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