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scripsiWe just finished watching The Man In the High Castle. It was absolutely fantastic! Scary, scary, scary, but fantastic! In case you have missed it, it’s an adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s book with the same name. It’s an AU, where Germany and Japan has won WWII and has divided USA between them. It’s now 1962 and there are pockets of resistance here and there. Hitler is dying and everyone knows that when he dies, the fragile peace between Germany and Japan will be gone.
I’ve read the book when I was around 13 and only remember fragment of it. I found it difficult to read back then and very depressing. So I can’t vouch of how faithful the series is to the book, but as TV show it was amazing. The early 60’s atmosphere is beautifully conveyed, but also wrong. There are swastikas at Union Square, the hospital's burn the ovens on Tuesdays and though Jews aren’t put into concentration camps where Japan rules, they can just disappear and people just go on as usual. The cast was stellar through and through, but I was totally blown away with Rufus Sewell’s character as a high ranking American nazist. I have always thought he was a great actor, but this is his best performance ever. He is smart and very, very scary, but also a loving family father and though we the audience abhor his decisions and actions, it’s also evident that he isn’t a person who blithely follows. His ideals and actions has come with a prize and has clearly not been an easy decision. One of the best acting performances I have ever seen. It’s not an easy feet to play a frightening character who is responsible for countless evil actions and still gives it heart and soul.
It took me a time to realise, but despite the very violent society these people lives and breathes in, the violence is never in focus. It’s there, all right, as a constant undercurrent, but we see very little of it on the screen. The camera never makes love to violent actions as it so often do. We may see a man gets beaten, but the camera really lingers on the man walking away from it. It conveys a feeling that here violence is such an ordinary thing, something that happens in people’s normal life that it has ceased to be something they notice. Very subtle and very creepy.
There will be a second season and even if I’m unsure they will still follow the plot, I look forward to more. Such a very, very good series. I think you can tell from me blathering...
I’ve read the book when I was around 13 and only remember fragment of it. I found it difficult to read back then and very depressing. So I can’t vouch of how faithful the series is to the book, but as TV show it was amazing. The early 60’s atmosphere is beautifully conveyed, but also wrong. There are swastikas at Union Square, the hospital's burn the ovens on Tuesdays and though Jews aren’t put into concentration camps where Japan rules, they can just disappear and people just go on as usual. The cast was stellar through and through, but I was totally blown away with Rufus Sewell’s character as a high ranking American nazist. I have always thought he was a great actor, but this is his best performance ever. He is smart and very, very scary, but also a loving family father and though we the audience abhor his decisions and actions, it’s also evident that he isn’t a person who blithely follows. His ideals and actions has come with a prize and has clearly not been an easy decision. One of the best acting performances I have ever seen. It’s not an easy feet to play a frightening character who is responsible for countless evil actions and still gives it heart and soul.
It took me a time to realise, but despite the very violent society these people lives and breathes in, the violence is never in focus. It’s there, all right, as a constant undercurrent, but we see very little of it on the screen. The camera never makes love to violent actions as it so often do. We may see a man gets beaten, but the camera really lingers on the man walking away from it. It conveys a feeling that here violence is such an ordinary thing, something that happens in people’s normal life that it has ceased to be something they notice. Very subtle and very creepy.
There will be a second season and even if I’m unsure they will still follow the plot, I look forward to more. Such a very, very good series. I think you can tell from me blathering...
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Date: 2016-01-08 10:04 pm (UTC)Gabrielle
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Date: 2016-01-09 02:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-01-09 01:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-01-09 01:49 am (UTC)I want to watch that, and I want to reread the book, but I have to be in a certain mood to appreciate Philip Dick, and I'm not there right now.
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Date: 2016-01-12 12:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-01-09 10:32 am (UTC)I watched the first episode and was so intrigued, but at least in the US I have to join Amazon Prime to see the rest. Eventually -- I'm so intrigued.
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Date: 2016-01-09 02:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-01-09 04:53 pm (UTC)*HUGS*
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Date: 2016-01-11 09:52 pm (UTC)