High Water

Based on real events I found High Water engrossing from its first episode on until its conclusion. Employing fictional characters to portray the impending disaster was a clever move by the show makers. It allowed the leads to be portrayed in depth without any possible lawsuits, and there's a moving sub-plot that gets resolved close to the end. Filming and acting was great throughout, I especially enjoyed the female lead who tried to warn the incompetent local bureaucrats stuck in the past. In a way it's reminiscent of another recent brilliant series Five Days at Memorial, about the Hurricane Katrina tragedy.

That this show is based on the 1997 floodings in Poland, makes it all the more interesting. Taking place just 8 years after the Berlin Wall fell, we also get to see how the old Soviet bureaucracy still had a lot of influence,

One can clearly see that much effort has been put in making this show period authentic. The cars, props and the way people dress just transport you back to the mid 90's. It is just awesome to see the cars that we were driving in some 25 years ago. This is also one of the reasons that I like for instance the highly popular show "Stranger Things", since it transports you back to the 80's.

The dramatization of the events also include a storyline about a female hydrologist and her interaction with the government and the citizens living in the endangered areas. This storyline however is completely fictitious and is partially over-the-top. A man that she 'coincidentally' meets early on - a citizen living in the area whose father is in the hospital - leads a little uprising which just makes the story difficult to believe.

Overall, the acting and cinematography are pretty decent. The increasing amount of internationally produced movies and shows, clearly show that quality content is increasingly able to compete with U. S.-produced content. One big gap however is still caused by the often low-quality dubbing. I myself really prefer to watch content with english dubbing - instead of using subtitles - and the english dubbing in this show just isn't realistic. The voices do not fit and the lip-movements are noticeably unsychronized with the voice.

Summarizing, I would have preferred it if the producers would have solely focussed on the real events. I think that an alternative edit of the movie - where lots of the interactions of the woman hydrologist would be removed - would make a way more interesting show. The current 6 episodes could thereby be reduced to 4 episodes, which would make it more fit with what amount of time I would want to put in this show. Those 4 episodes would make me rate this show with 7 stars, instead of the 6 stars it deserves in its current 6-episode setup.

Only one thing ruined the 10* review from me... In the beginning of the first episode, action was set in Poland in 1997 but the actress was wearing T-shirt from Hard Rock Cafe Amsterdam which was established 2 years later, in 1999. Bad research from producers, I guess. That was very emotional time to watch the flood on news in real life, real time. Poland, Czech Republic and Germany and other countries in central Europe had to deal with this power of nature. Earth sends us singnals from decades, to help it restore its natural beauty. Good that someone creates shows like that to remind how powerful nature is. Quite interesting tv series indeed...

At the ending credits of the last episode, I just found out that this series based on true story of flood disaster in Poland..

Jasmina Tremer (Agnieszka Zulewska) play a realistic main protagonist who is annoying and hard to sympathize at, but with a brain. She is the intelligent one that surrounded by the rest of the characters from the bureaucrats office who are indecisive or keep making wrong choices. It is a bit ridiculous to see. Did the script intentionally make her stand out? I think the script has a lil tendency to make certain characters look a certain way, especially the governor who suddenly become the hero towards the end.

The dialogue is packed with important details so you need to pay attention to understand the plot.

All in all, the visual of the flood and after the flood is very well executed. It reminds me of my own country who faced flood at the similar scale years ago.

This is one of Netflix's rare masterpieces. Zulewska is particularly brilliant in her role that she plays to perfection... just like the whole casting. This true story is told in a thrilling, moving and stressful way. The fast script keeps us constantly on the alert... and I found no boredom by unnecessary scenes except perhaps during the last episode. In addition, we like to hate some of the characters.

I also loved how the team was able to reproduce authenticity of the time.

Like a book that you can't stop reading... I watched the six episodes back-to-back on a Sunday.

The Director mastered this serie.