I started the first episode with great excitement, just because Rumi is the poet who makes me cry so easily. No one before or after Rumi has reached such depth, love and breadth of humanistic intellect. No nationalist or religious propaganda can fit around him, and unfortunately this production does exactly that. It takes away from Rumi his greatest achievements, his design of a unique society in the history of humanity that allowed it to flourish through the equal value of all its citizens, religious tolerance and justice.
Let's get to the spicy stuff. The total acceptance of same-sex love in times when the West was experiencing executions by the Inquisition is something great, just imagine it. It is known that Rumi wrote his most beautiful poems about his beloved Dervish (whispers of the Beloved), one can compare them with those of the Buddhist bibliography of Japanese monks or with the poetry of the Greek Sappho, before the 15th century there are few but significant poems that highlight same-sex love in world culture and many of them belong to Rumi. And yet, none of these aspects of him were included in the script. I saw a character dry of human qualities, well-polished and made to appeal to a very specific television audience. Everything looks pretentious and obviously ... "straight", even the Sufi transcendence scene of the first episode reminds of a bunch of hooligans or Vikings preparing for battle, nothing that moves from humility to ecstasy.
Here, the Transcendence is just CGI.
Another sweaty imitation of Game of Thrones in terms of cinematography, direction, photography and art direction - nothing new or original, too many boring slow shots and quite mediocre CGI. The music is fine, leading and permanently present, but the Sound Department is absent. Huge carelessness there. The actors' performances are bearable to good. Costumes are weird.
It's a shame to burn such a complex and creative spirit along with its words and wisdom, to make a mediocre war drama. It's a shame to vulgarize Sufism, too. Perhaps the last true filmmaker's approach to Sufism is "Bab'Aziz (2005)" by Nacer Khemir, I highly recommend it to those who love "spins" and tears.
