Stars und Ratten (E01)

After the promising first shot, the quality only deteriorates. First there is an inept attempt at show-business satire, which in the context of the issues addressed here might have been relevant at the beginning of the millennium, with good-looking people dancing and smoking, then more dancing and smoking people in nicely lit shots, and finally a bit of similarly chaste eroticism that doesn’t cross any boundaries as in Fifty Shades of Grey (only the moaning is louder here). The dialogue has about as much in common with the actual speech of real people as chicken nuggets have with real meat. The rhythm is completely off and all of the actors (most notably the Weeknd) are all over the map with their speech, rarely ending up in the same place. It’s provocative only by how many levels on which it doesn’t work. The whole thing has a sort of embarrassed pubescent vibe, as if Sam Levinson wanted to shoot a porn flick but was afraid of what his parents/HBO would say, so he awkwardly fabricated the illusion that he is pursuing a purpose higher than mere (self-)gratification through his work. (06.06.2023)