Transatlantique

I really wanted to like this limited series. The historical characters-artists, writer-thinkers, philosophers-are familiar and deserve far better. A telling indicator of the empty-calories production: Despite the compelling, emotional historical narrative, the characters are too often one-dimensional. One of the most pivotal and horrific events in modern history and all we get is superficial treatment of those events and characters who engage only minimally with those events.

If I didn't know anything about this historical period and relied on this series to learn about it, I'd think these characters, targeted by Nazis and fascists, did little more than party, drink, smoke, and engage in lots of self-promotion driven by a self-absorbed lack of awareness about the monumental events unfolding around them. There are few, if any, genuinely sympathetic characters in what should have been a production filled with such. I'll stick with Casablanca's fictional take. But the series' photography is *gorgeous* and reflects the artistry that defines some of the principal characters' work.

The true story is well known and awe inspiring. A true larger than life story in WWII occupied France when the South was still a "free" zone. All the refugees were in Nice, Cannes, Marseille awaiting to leave the territory. Unfortunately, the series is torn between retelling the true events and highly romanticising them with the addition of too many love interests as well as too many politically correct subplots raising concerns that were not relevant at the time especially in time of war. Those tend to slow and hinder the proper storytelling, depriving it of fluidity in addition to some completely false resistance storylines. It could have been great.

This series started very strong, sympathetic lead characters, beautiful cinematography, great set design and an interesting mixture of authentic historical events and fictional elements.

I really appreciated they created a series about the idealism and deep humanity of personalities like Varian Fry and Lisa Fittko, who risked their own lifes to save so many others. They were true heroes, lights in the darkness of their time and should serve as Role Models for our days, which are tumbling into darker times once again.

It made me think about the refugee crisis of our times.

With the difference that now refugees aren't trying to escape from Europe but try to get there desperately to find a better living.

I just couldn't give it a higher rating because script got thinner in the later episodes, being watered down by too many annoying and flat melodramatic cliches.

The Netflix series is based on real life events in Marseilles, France during the early days of WW II. Dark times, indeed, from an historical view. But, somehow, "Transatlantic" comes across more like a collection of ingénues and eccentrics on a madcap adventure, rather than as a literal life and death struggle against fascism. The tone of this series is set by a soundtrack that hit me every which way but right; the overall effect was like watching a strange, inappropriate homage to a Woody Allen period piece comedy. Kudos to the cast, though, which manages at times to rise above it all with some excellent performances; and the on-location cinematography adds authenticity to the historical weight of the storyline. "Transatlantic" may be the only series you should watch with the audio muted and the captions on, because what happened is worth knowing so that it is not forgotten, or repeated.

I am so happy that they actually used foreign actors with accents from the respective countries. Usually the actors all speak with a British accent when representing other countries. But, this series is absolutely refreshing since it really represents Europe through having actors from a multitude of countries. I liked learning about this part of WWII history and will research it more. It has great character development. It's not all one thing, but all parts of the human condition. It's a great glimpse into another part of WWII history that I knew nothing about. I'll definitely be researching this more.