The Lost King (5 Stars)

In Germany there's a Mediathek for the first German television channel. Literally translated, the word means media library. In actual fact it's more of a temporary catch-up for television broadcasts. After a film or a talk show is shown on television, it's put online in the Mediathek for a few weeks. It's similar to the BBC's Iplayer, but not as flexible. In the recent past I've only watched political talk shows, mostly about the recent German elections, but today I noticed that "The Lost King" is available. This was one of my favourite films of 2023, so I jumped at the chance to watch it again.

The default setting is that the film is shown dubbed into German. That's obvious, because the Mediathek is intended for viewing in Germany. Then I checked the settings, and I discovered that it could also be watched in the original English version.

Now this is where it got weird. The default version is with German dialogue, with optional German subtitles. The version with English dialogue has an option to turn the subtitles on and off, but it doesn't work as expected. If the subtitles are turned off, German subtitles are still shown. If the subtitles are turned on, the subtitles are shown in duplicate: in white at the bottom of the screen and in yellow at the top of the screen; the identical text in German. What monkeys did they hire to program the Mediathek?

I enjoyed the film regardless. It's the true story of a woman who was so obsessed with Richard III that she saw visions of him. And yet she found his grave, a feat that notable British scholars had failed to do for hundreds of years. In addition, she cleared Richard III's reputation by proving that Shakespeare's depiction of him is incorrect.

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