Spies of Warsaw/Miranda
Jan. 18th, 2013 05:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shallownessSpies of Warsaw featured a slightly different world war 2-related set up to the one we’re used to – 1930s Poland, as seen by a French diplomat/spy, with Nazi Germany on the one hand, Soviet Russia on the other. And the audience knows what’s coming (very broadly in this audience member’s case. I seem to have forgotten quite a bit of second world war history.)
But doing something like this in English throws me. Here, the Polish and Russian characters had ACCENTS (sometimes so thick that they were hard to understand), but the French sounded like English people, except when Tennant’s accent wobbled (sorry, I have nothing against him, but I’m not mad for him either, and it wobbled). Which was fine until there were actual English characters who sounded exactly the same as the French ones. Oh, and the Nazis all spoke German...
...of course they did. And then, randomly, a kid in Czechoslovakia, just after I’d been wondering what language(s) Jean-Francois was speaking there, spoke in his native tongue.
The lack of consistency on top of a sort of dampening effect (I felt the same was true of the Branagh version of Wallander, you lose too many cultural clues) really annoyed me. (Not so much in Les Mis, which I just saw.)
It occurred to me I’d have liked the whole thing more with a different (female) POV. I enjoyed the Contessa enjoying being a spy. I enjoyed the Q-like Helen Mirren lookalike at the French Embassy and Mrs Rosen with the better memory than her husband. I kept expecting Anna/Anya to turn out to be a spy too or in the know about something, and was vaguely disappointed when she wasn’t much more than The Girl. Lady Angela (or whatever her name was) however, was brill.
Instead, we got quite a familiar heroic type, with added stereotypically French traits - if not that much flair - and a story that, at times, felt quite familiar and even old fashioned, despite the post-the-watershed sex, violence and languages. There was one moment that was almost camp but scary featuring a Nazi stroking a cat, and you knew its human was going to get it.
I wished the fight scenes had been better in the first episode. The second seemed more exciting, (SPLOSION) but led up to a WEIRD ending. For one thing, the focus on the lead couple didn’t involve me – they seemed so self-involved, especially with the Casablanca referencing - when other couples had to just lump it.
I found Armand and Gabrielle more romantic:
HIM: I hate the country
HER: Come to the country with me to visit my moping brother for my sake
HIM: Ok.
But back to the ending. There had to be building up for something that wasn’t a battlefield, and it had to feel like some kind of a win, but instead it involved introducing random new characters, Roma (?) bandits (!?!?) and the endnotes didn’t even mention whether the bullion helped Poland in any way – did France give it back? Was it really a thing that happened? And having the happy couple about to go off and be married in Alsace...wasn’t a HEA, exactly, was it!?
In short, don’t see this if you haven’t seen Casablanca ever (or recently), watch Casablanca instead.
Miranda 3.4 Je Regrette Nothing
Weeeell, there were a few good bits and bits that made me laugh thank you very much if you please, but the extended beginning with Penny wasn’t as good or revelatory as the series 2 episode with the shrink; the gang and being sick and then being fake sick was a good idea that deserved more space; and Miranda at a music festival is an episode of its own, surely? And it’s a bad sign when the catchphrases irritate me. But Stevie’s cat pyjamas were covetable.
But doing something like this in English throws me. Here, the Polish and Russian characters had ACCENTS (sometimes so thick that they were hard to understand), but the French sounded like English people, except when Tennant’s accent wobbled (sorry, I have nothing against him, but I’m not mad for him either, and it wobbled). Which was fine until there were actual English characters who sounded exactly the same as the French ones. Oh, and the Nazis all spoke German...
...of course they did. And then, randomly, a kid in Czechoslovakia, just after I’d been wondering what language(s) Jean-Francois was speaking there, spoke in his native tongue.
The lack of consistency on top of a sort of dampening effect (I felt the same was true of the Branagh version of Wallander, you lose too many cultural clues) really annoyed me. (Not so much in Les Mis, which I just saw.)
It occurred to me I’d have liked the whole thing more with a different (female) POV. I enjoyed the Contessa enjoying being a spy. I enjoyed the Q-like Helen Mirren lookalike at the French Embassy and Mrs Rosen with the better memory than her husband. I kept expecting Anna/Anya to turn out to be a spy too or in the know about something, and was vaguely disappointed when she wasn’t much more than The Girl. Lady Angela (or whatever her name was) however, was brill.
Instead, we got quite a familiar heroic type, with added stereotypically French traits - if not that much flair - and a story that, at times, felt quite familiar and even old fashioned, despite the post-the-watershed sex, violence and languages. There was one moment that was almost camp but scary featuring a Nazi stroking a cat, and you knew its human was going to get it.
I wished the fight scenes had been better in the first episode. The second seemed more exciting, (SPLOSION) but led up to a WEIRD ending. For one thing, the focus on the lead couple didn’t involve me – they seemed so self-involved, especially with the Casablanca referencing - when other couples had to just lump it.
I found Armand and Gabrielle more romantic:
HIM: I hate the country
HER: Come to the country with me to visit my moping brother for my sake
HIM: Ok.
But back to the ending. There had to be building up for something that wasn’t a battlefield, and it had to feel like some kind of a win, but instead it involved introducing random new characters, Roma (?) bandits (!?!?) and the endnotes didn’t even mention whether the bullion helped Poland in any way – did France give it back? Was it really a thing that happened? And having the happy couple about to go off and be married in Alsace...wasn’t a HEA, exactly, was it!?
In short, don’t see this if you haven’t seen Casablanca ever (or recently), watch Casablanca instead.
Miranda 3.4 Je Regrette Nothing
Weeeell, there were a few good bits and bits that made me laugh thank you very much if you please, but the extended beginning with Penny wasn’t as good or revelatory as the series 2 episode with the shrink; the gang and being sick and then being fake sick was a good idea that deserved more space; and Miranda at a music festival is an episode of its own, surely? And it’s a bad sign when the catchphrases irritate me. But Stevie’s cat pyjamas were covetable.
