Television Review | Netflix’s new hit series Lapsikulta is smart television – Jännäri cleverly keeps his secret until the end

Hannah shows the record he received to the surveillance camera. The girl has been released from her lifetime imprisonment, but believes that “father” is still following her through cameras.

German Child gold– series’ direct point of comparison is an American film Rom (2015). Both are based on hit books, and both take place in the aftermath of hijackings that have lasted for years.

Child goldis the background of the series by Romy Hausmann debut novel (2019), which was published under the same name in Finnish last year. The psychological frenzy has turned into six approximately 45-minute episodes. The series is therefore two and a half hours longer than the praised one Rom– drama.

Miniseries uses time well, the minutes are reflected in the abundance of content and themes. Child gold handles Rome with the same themes of trauma and the difficulty of recovery, but it adds a moment of tension to the aftermath. “Father’s” presence does not relent when freedom dawns.

by Isabel Kleefeld and Julian Pörksen the series is smart television. It does not reinvent the conventions of tension narration, but manages them smoothly. Child gold provides information and ends episodes with cliffhangers, i.e. surprising twists. The key parts are played by actors who effortlessly navigate the middle ground between sympathetic and suspicious.

At least there are no guarantees about the thoughts of the victims. Events are set in motion when a blonde woman (Kim Riedle) runs away into the forest in just a nightgown and gets hit by a car. He is taken to the hospital badly injured.

Next to the woman, Hannah walks from the forest to the ambulance and the hospital (Nail Schuberth). They have shared the same prison, but both are tight-lipped about their identities and the exact conditions of their imprisonment.

The overall picture remains hidden until the last meters of the series. To gradually open it, flashbacks are used as well as the police officers dedicated to the case (Haley Louise Jones and Hans Löw) research work.

Series cleverness goes beyond mastering the means of narration. Child gold to reach the horror of living in a surveillance society and under control.

When the abducted are behind bars, the surveillance camera makes sure that the stranglehold is not released. Later, at the children’s rehabilitation center, the supervision is more casual and does not aim directly at discipline, but the cameras lurk there too.

The paranoid atmosphere naturally extends the experience of control to freedom. It is emphasized by sometimes bringing up the thoughts of the victims, which echo the learned obedience. If “father” is not watching through the camera, he is watching inside his own head.

Child Gold, Netflix. (K16)