“Helgoland”: Series “Helgoland”: End of the world and preserves

Immediately after the 2009/10 swine flu pandemic, there was a real boom in pandemic stories in literature and film. The star-studded Hollywood blockbuster “Contagion” (2011) probably had the greatest reach. In the follow-up to the corona pandemic, there has been no such hype so far, although Hanya Yanagihara’s “To Paradise” (2022) and Emily St. John Mandel’s “The Sea of ​​Endless Peace” (2023) have already released two fictional pandemic novels by well-known authors topic have appeared.

Now the pandemic is also available in series format. “Helgoland 513,” a seven-part series produced in Germany that tells of a post-apocalyptic world after a pandemic, started on Sky. Exactly 513 people live on the North Sea island of Heligoland, which gives it the title, isolated from the rest of the world in an independent, sometimes quite authoritarian community. The barren island’s resources are said to be able to feed exactly 513 people in the future. Therefore, for every newborn baby, a resident has to leave the island, whether he or she jumps off the cliff or is abandoned on the mudflats. Who has to go is decided by a ranking in which places 511 to 513 are made available for voting.

“Helgoland 513” by director Robert Schwentke, who has already made various blockbusters in Hollywood such as “Flightplan” (2005) and “The Determination – Insurgent” (2015), features a whole series of well-known German actors. Martina Gedeck very convincingly plays the resolute island boss Beatrice, who, together with the doctor Matthias (Hendrik Heutmann), runs the island’s fortunes and manages the permanent emergency there, which is garnished with a few pseudo-democratic votes and is guarded by the island’s own militia.

Meanwhile, in the laboratory, including the quarantine station, a vaccine against the deadly disease similar to smallpox is being intensively researched. A small patrol boat with militia members wearing NBC protective clothing regularly travels to the mainland and purchases various materials from a ruling gang in completely destroyed Hamburg in exchange for food that is needed on the island. Until a group on a shore leave finds vaccine, of which there are supposed to be many more, and an island resident becomes infected with the deadly virus.

“Helgoland 513” is like a crude mixture of “12 Monkeys” (1995), the science fiction hit “Silo,” which was recently filmed by Apple TV+, and the German series “Sloborn” (2019). Some motifs are also reminiscent of Theresia Enzensberger’s apocalyptic novel “At Sea” (2022). The need in the culture industry to play through post-apocalyptic scenarios and the collapse of social systems is increasing. This ranges from the Netflix blockbuster “Leave the World Behind” to Jonathan Lethem’s latest novel “The Standstill” (2024).

In his essay “Garbage and Spirit” (2023), the Kreuzberg philosopher Guillaume Paoli recently expressed the longing for a break with our unreasonable present and the valid capitalist motto of “Keep going!” With the pandemic narrative, the longing for this break can be fictionally implemented in a comparatively simple way. »Helgoland 513« does not set completely new standards, but rather uses a very common narrative pattern in which the pandemic is far deadlier than Corona was and all civilizational systems gradually collapse in the blink of an eye.

“Helgoland 513” also tells very devotedly about the authoritarian community spirit and depicts a sometimes absurd everyday life, including an island supermarket where homemade preserves can be taken with you without any money and are strictly rationed.

Available on Sky