Video Interview: Behind the Scenes of Davos 1917

The spy drama Davos 1917 takes viewers into the world of World War I-era Switzerland, which appears to be an oasis amid a war-ravaged Europe but is actually a hotbed for spy activity.

The story came about after the writers discovered The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann, a novel published in the 1920s about a sanatorium in Davos. “We thought [Davos] is a great international setting,” Adrien Illien, one of the series’ writers, explains. “Then we came across the very interesting fact that, in neutral countries, like Switzerland, there were big spy networks becausnew pe you can easily go behind frontlines,” Illien says. “Elites from all over the world were there to get cured from tuberculosis. We thought this melting pot of internationalities was” interesting.

Dominique Devenport stars as a nurse in Davos who is desperate to reunite with her illegitimate baby. “What I really liked was that [Johanna] is a character who goes through a huge personal development,” she says. “She comes home, and there is really no place to go. It feels like the surroundings are getting closer and closer, and she’s trapped. Throughout the story, she meets Ilse, and she has all these new opportunities and becomes this whole new person. Or maybe, she is finally allowed to become herself.”

The “Ilse” Devenport refers to, Ilse van Hausen, is inspired by a real historical figure: the handler of the famed spy Mata Hari. She is played by Jeanette Hain, who describes the character as “very self-determined and self-confident. She is humorous. She has no rules; she makes her own rules. She’s manipulative. She’s a countess on one side, and on the other, she’s a spy. She has so many facets. She’s kind of a mystery.”

Among the themes Davos 1917 tackles is the concept of neutrality. Switzerland “produced weapons for all sides,” Jan-Eric Mack, one of the series’ directors, notes. “At the same time, they took war-wounded people from different parties to come to Davos.

“We’ve been discussing, was it a good thing to do that? Or was it bad? For such a small country, it probably was the only way to survive. But in a moral way, it seems to be very bad.”