(TV SERIES) Freud - A Fictional Tale of the Famous Austrian Neurologist & Psyhoanalysis Founder

Still during the new year's holiday (which was longer than usual this year due to it falling on Friday), I was able to watch many series that I put off for a while. This one intrigued me because of the famous name and the premise. Plus I thought I was ready to start watching series from Germany after that critically acclaimed complex time travel series Dark. Anyway we should get into this one now.

Brief Story Line

Set in the year 1886, story focused on the young Sigmund Freud (Robert Finster) who had his own idea on how to treat mental disorders patients which unfortunately made him the subject of ridicule in the medical society. One night during one of his visit to a party by the elites of Vienna, he met with an interesting woman named Fleur Salomé (Ella Rumpf - Tiger Girl, The Divine Order etc) who seemed to be a medium for spirits.

Meanwhile a gruesome murder happened in the city of Vienna which made the senior police Alfred Kiss (Georg Friedrich - Bright Nights etc) eager to solve, especially when there was another case appeared & hinted of possible series of murders. With the unlikely help from Freud and also the medium, Kiss tried his best to solve them while trying to rid of the ghosts from his past.

So what would happen to Freud, Fleur and Kiss? Find them all in this series.

End of Brief Story Line

As I said above, the prospect of seeing Freud using his psychoanalysis method to solve mysteries was something I look forward to. The early part of the series was more of introduction of Freud and all the challenges he faced especially in the medical community. And when the first murder happened, I thought OK, we are finally getting to the interesting part. But as the story continued, it appeared that it was not exactly what I had hoped for.

The story became a bit more complex with the political story which frankly a bit complicated for me especially being a person who did not know the history of Austria, Hungary or Germany during that period. And what made me a bit disappointed was the medium part. OK it made for interesting "case study" for Freud but the mhytical/supernatural aspect seemed to be a bit distracting. Both political and mhytical area did nothing to make story interesting personally for me. To be honest, during the middle part of the first season, I felt very bored & sleepy (especially in episode 4-5) and could not keep my eyes opened to watch it. 

Not until I reached episode 7 that the story became more interesting for me as it started to focus more on the big reveal of the murder cases and the major reason for them. Plus I also thought Freud's strength began to show as he got more confidence. Btw, the side story of Kiss was actually pretty interesting and engaging while Fleur, aside from being the perfect subject did not seem to provide anything else. Oh, I also noticed there were some real characters in here such as Freud's future wife Martha (Mercedes Müller), Professor Meynert (Rainer Bock), crown prince Rudolf (Stefan Konarske) and few others.

Because I already read the brief plot, I knew that this is not a biopic and did not expect it to be too serious, but to me personally, that political part was a total distraction. I would have liked it better if they just focused on Freud's struggle to be accepted by the medical community and his effort in solving the cases using his methods (especially hypnosis). Oh I actually like the titles of each episode which totally fit the series as it was taken from specific diagnosis. Now I do not mind combining mystery or fantasy using real person as the lead character since it is entirely up to the creativity of writers/series creator, so the fictional part was not something that would make me hesitate to give it a try. In fact I did quite enjoy a movie which surprised me back then when it was released, titled Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (funnily enough was compared by one of the critics of this series as well). But I could also understand if audience would not like it too much. 

Overall, my personal experience watching this series was a bit of excitement in the early part, then huge boredom in the middle and entertained in the final 2 episodes. The part that I like was the murder case solving and Freud's personal challenges plus Alfred Kiss' side story. Whereas the parts I dislike was the political side story and the mhytical and a bit supernatural part of Fleur. There was even a very disturbing scene towards the end of episode 5. So if you are expecting a cool biopic of Freud, then this is definitely not an option. However, if you want to see Freud act like Sherlock Holmes during 19th century with wonderful settings & costumes plus you do not mind seeing some disturbing, nudity & sex violence scenes, then you could give this a try.

Mike's movie moments rating: 3 out of 5 stars