Diversity of perspectives
The Sense8 series directed by Lana and Andy Wachowski and Tom Tykwer stands for inventiveness and crossing invisible lines.
There was a time when television enjoyed a dubious reputation in pop culture as an arena for triv-ial entertainment. Not any more: American TV series in parti-cular have long-since been tackling more intricate stories, complex characters, fascinating topics. To name but a few: Breaking Bad told of a man in a crisis who becomes a drug dealer and monster; Mad Men sketched a genre picture of 1960s America; and the dark thriller True Detective immersed itself in exi-stential questions surrounding a difficult friendship between two men. The writer Salman Rushdie summed it up four years ago when he said that TV drama had taken over from the movie, and even the novel, as a market place for big ideas.
One highly topical example is the Netflix series Sense8, the first season of which was produced by the Wachowskis (who made the Matrix trilogy and the novel adaptation Cloud Atlas) in cooperation with the German director Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run). A leading role is played by the German actor Max Riemelt, who in Sense8 plays a safecracker plagued by unresolved conflicts with his late father.
Sense8 is a hugely ambitious project inspired by a radical idea and requiring an immense logistical effort. The series is about eight young people on five con-tinents – including a girl DJ, a secretly gay movie star, a female student, a minibus driver, a martial arts sportswoman, a policeman and a transsexual activist – who suddenly feel such an intense connection to each other that they can intervene in the others’ lives and worlds. “The idea is that we’re all connected with each other,” says film maker J. Michael Straczynski, who developed the idea together with the Wachowskis. The series was shot on location in Berlin, Mumbai, Chicago, San Francisco, London, Reykjavik, Nairobi and Seoul.
Speaking about her artistic relationship with Tom Tykwer, Lana Wachowski says: “There’s an intense and very special connection between us that transcends frontiers and continents.” Tykwer had previously collaborated with the Wachowskis on the music for the Matrix films and produced the highly complex film Cloud Atlas with them. For Sense8, Tykwer directed the episodes in Berlin and Nairobi and again wrote the music. Berlin also plays a special role in the Wachowskis’ lives. The film-makers have an apartment in the borough of Tiergarten. “Berlin is the greatest city in the world,” says Lana Wachowski. ▪
