Transatlantic

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 is 'based upon' a true story and draws from the interest that generates. It does involve and blend depictions of real people - including great artists and figures from the period who we now know and revere. There is a lot of name dropping in this drama to sprinkle a little extra magic in there.

This being said it's for light entertainment value only. We have lots of sexual intrigue and what I'm reluctant to describe as tension (it never really builds as tension to be honest). There's sex - let's put it that way - but again, nothing graphic, nothing explicit. Likewise, there's a war context - but there's no real fear or tension about the place (even when people are arrested you are never in fear of their lives). There is no depiction of mistreatment even if it is spoken of and some of the language is of the day (opinions shared by Nazis and sympathisers) to make you feel revolted.

This is a drama that takes you to a viewing platform from where you ought to be able to see all these things - but it is just short of showing you anything powerful or shocking. Instead it's foggy and misty, and you're distracted by an indulgence of clothing, houses, scenery, and an inexplicable mood that might explode into a party or a song and dance at any moment. There is the token anxious character here or there - but they the party poopers rather than someone making a genuine and valid point. We see little of PTSD, flashbacks, anxiety attacks, worries or concerns. The artists are resilient in their joy - they are not preoccupied with expressing the darkness of the surrounding circumstances.

Likewise, when the fleeing refugee Jews make it to the south coast of France in their hopes of escape - they don't find each other huddled in masses, cough and starving, exhausted from walking hundreds of miles - instead it looks like a beach holiday. One man runs delighted into the sea and splashes in the water (salt water that nobody could drink). Nobody is concerned about where to find food or how to make the next venture to escape the country (given their backs are to the sea).

Overall this is a problematic depiction and it's lightweight. It's for enjoyment - not to recreate anything sharply. How accurate it is, I find very questionable.

Nevertheless if you suspend that problematic aspect, you can enjoy a lot about the series. There is some decent acting and the lead female actress, Gillian Jacobs, is very charming and charismatic, giving an enjoyable performance overall. I'd like to see her in something that pushed her a bit harder to be honest.

This is a solid 6 - but overall there are better dramas out there and this will never be regarded as a classic because it's too forgettable and it's just not compelling.

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.

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.

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.