Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
Cast: Matthew Beard, Jürgen Maurer, Astrit Alihaidaraj, Christoph Bittenauer, Heinz Arthur Boltuch, Amelia Bullmore, Haymon Maria Buttinger, Josef Ellers, Stipe Erceq, Larissa Fuchs, Lucy Griffiths, Simon Hatzl, Miriam Hie, Conleth Hill, Brigitte Karner, Charlene McKenna, Dajana Rajic, Robert Reinagl, Bernhard Schir, Florian Teichtmeister, Raphael von Bargen.
Not every case has a satisfying ending, not all police investigations conclude in a success for law and order, and in that dichotomy, it offers the armchair detective to hone their skills, to pit their wits against what could be seen as incompetence of the higher echelons of the force, or as in the tale of The Devil’s Kiss, the second episode of the highly rated Vienna Blood, the weight of history playing its part in the lead up to the death of a Europe that had been uneasy itself for over a century.
The way history is taught today, or rather learned by the impatient, is at times akin to absorbing by bullet point, as long as you know the date of an event, if you can grasp for example who assassinated whom, who won, who was defeated, then you will have a chance of winning a small fortune on any weekday afternoon quiz show. History though is not about the event, it what leads up to it, the prologue, and the knowledge that certain moments could have seen history altered if the appropriate action had been taken.
The Devil’s Kiss sees psychologist Liebermann and Detective Rheinhardt, played with exquisite charm by Matthew Beard and Jürgen Maurer respectively embroil themselves in history’s path as the spectre of nationalism comes face to face with the call for imperialism as the years walk inevitably to the moment where Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg was assassinated by the student Gavrilo Princip.
What the 90-minute episode shows with determined introspection in the direction of Robert Dornhelm and the screenplay adaption by Steve Thompson, is the drama of confusion, that all the best laid plans of the police is only ever as good as the people who lead the investigation; when professional jealousy gets in the way of catching a would be killer, when a policeman’s head is turned, then the suspect has every chance of getting away with their elaborate plan.
The episode shows with considerable weight that even the most educated and well-informed of people can be taken in when their duty is flattered, when they are made to feel as though their protection is required, and in the scenes where Liebermann understands how he has been taken in by a seemingly innocent witness, is one of sheer television sophistication, of brutal reality.
A serial that deserves much more than attention, a piece of television that is cultured, skilled in its delivery, and not afraid to show that officialdom often finds itself at odds with the psyche of humanity, from start to finish The Devil’s Kiss is one to savour.
Ian D. Hall