A few more foreign TV favorites
…including the television drama that proves the Dutch could teach Marie Kondo how to declutter, and the one in which Germans play Italians in stories written by an American.
Sixth in a series of posts about foreign television. The previous posts are here, here, here here and here.
For this last, for now, post about foreign TV: A few series that don’t fit into any one category
The Netherlands: Overspel (English title: The Adulterer)
Nothing and no one is quite as it seems in this Dutch drama full of twists, turns, and incredibly clutter-free homes and offices. Produced by Dutch public broadcaster VARA, it’s streaming on Walter Presents, part of the PBS Masterpiece channel.
Photographer Iris Hoegaarde (Sylvia Hoeks) has an affair with Willem Steenhouwer, (Fedja van Huêt), a lawyer whose principal client is his father-in-law, Huub Couwenberg, (Kees Prins); the kind of real estate developer who should have “reputed” in his job title.
Unbeknownst to either of them, Couwenberg is under investigation by the public prosecutor’s office, an investigation about to be led by Iris’ husband, Pepijn van Erkel (Ramsey Nasr).
If you can accept this one big coincidence, then everything else works wonderfully, right up to the very last episode of the three-season series; the ending strains credulity a little. But brilliant performances and fine writing make it easy to accept a few contrivances. Characters — and character — is revealed through glances and gestures that add up to challenge our initial expectations and sympathies.
I didn’t realize just how good these performances, and these scripts, were until I saw what happens when you take the same plot, even the same scenes, and do it with mediocre writing and acting. That’s what ABC did when it bought the rights, moved the setting to Chicago and called it Betrayal. It’s streaming free (they wouldn’t dare charge for it) on ABC’s streaming site. I slogged through one episode. Even James Cromwell as the Couwenberg-equivalent couldn’t save it.
Watching an episode of Betrayal after seeing Overspel is what I imagine it’s like to see Hamlet performed first by the Royal Shakespeare Company and then the high school drama club.
One lesson I learned from Overspel is the extent to which English phrases have been incorporated seamlessly into Dutch. But if this series is any indication, what is absolutely not allowed in the Netherlands is clutter.
Apparently, the Dutch hate clutter. If a character is reading the Sunday paper at the dining room table, you may be sure the table will be spotless, there will be at most one coffee cup on that table, and every section of the paper not actually being read will be neatly folded as if it had just been delivered.
It’s not just houses. There’s no clutter in the police station. Even a newsroom isn’t cluttered. And, when a character is under stress there’s an excellent chance s/he’ll straighten an already perfectly neat desk. The Dutch could teach Marie Kondo how to declutter.
Italy — well, sort of: Donna Leon’s Brunetti
American author Donna Leon sets her Inspector Brunetti novels in Venice, where she’s lived for decades. One might think the logical choice to commission a television series based on the novels would be Italian public broadcaster RAI. They, after all, did a fantastic job with Andrea Camelleri’s Il Commissario Montalbano.
But Leon has never allowed the Brunetti novels to be translated into Italian. They are, however, enormously popular in Germany. So we get a television series that is faithful to the books, beautifully shot on location in Venice — and performed entirely in German. It’s produced by German public broadcaster ARD and streaming on MHz Choice.
This is not really unusual. After all, if Kenneth Branagh can play Wallender …
Still, when watching these programs we’re seeing English language novels about Italians portrayed for television by Germans, translated back into English. It takes a little getting used to.
But it works pretty well, especially after the first four episodes when Uwe Kockisch took over the role of Brunetti. Karl Fischer also is convincing as Brunetti’s deputy, Vienello.
But there’s still a problem — as Donna Leon explained in this 2011 interview:
France: Engrenages (Gears). English title: Spiral
This series was a huge hit in France when it debuted in 2005. That’s probably because it was as bold a departure from the usual French “comfort food” crime drama as Hill Street Blues was for American television in the 1980s. It’s produced by Canal+ and the first six seasons are streaming on MHz Choice. A seventh season began airing in France in February.
With its multiple storylines about the police and the judiciary, troubled, sometimes corrupt police and lawyers, hand-held camerawork and the look of washed out 8mm film, this series was so intent on being gritty that in the early seasons it managed to make Paris look unremittingly ugly. In later seasons, perhaps with an eye toward international sales, the producers eased up on that — also, the budget must have gone up because the crew was able to afford tripods for the cameras.
But every time I would lose patience with Spiral during its long run (and I recommend skipping season 2 entirely) one character would keep me interested: Judge François Roban (Philippe Duclos). M. le Juge is a man of the utmost integrity, until he isn’t. He is the uncompromising judge — who always compromises.
Portugal: Vidago Palace
When it comes to television, two words that are among the most likely to get me to change the channel or turn off the TV entirely are “costume drama.” But if it’s a Portuguese costume drama — well, that’s different.
So Vidago Palace gets on this list mostly because of how much I’ve come to love Portugal. And whatever else, this series is as warm-hearted as even an occasional visitor to Portugal might expect. It was commissioned by Portugal’s public broadcaster RTP and the public broadcaster for Spain’s Galicia region, TVG. It’s streaming on Acorn TV.
Vidago Palace has been called a Portuguese Downton Abbey but, for reasons noted above, I’ve never actually seen Downton Abbey so I don’t know if the comparison is apt.
The Vidago Palace of the title is an actual grand hotel in northern Portugal near the border with Galicia. The series is set in 1936, during the Spanish Civil War. Carlota, (Mikaela Lupu) is the daughter of a count and countess, once wealthy but now down on their luck and keeping up appearances. For the sake of the family finances she is about to be married off to Cesar da Silva (Pedro Barroso), the spoiled son of a wealthier family. But then she meets Pedro, (David Seijo), one of the hotel waiters, who is the son of the hotel’s concierge. They fall madly in love. Pedro also has an unnerving habit of sneaking into Spain to help fight the fascists. Meanwhile, a wide assortment of other types cross paths in typical grand hotel style.
None of this is subtle. The heroes are 100 percent heroic and the bad guys graduated with honors from the Snidely Whiplash Academy of Villainy. If there is a Portuguese version of Saturday Night Live, I guarantee they have done a parody of the opening scene. And you know how, in a British drama, if there are characters who are rich, loud, and a bit boorish, they’re going to be American? In a Portuguese series, they’ll be Brazilian.
All of which is why you can get an excellent sense of the series from this trailer even though it’s not subtitled:
The series, however is subtitled. And it’s all thoroughly endearing. The Portuguese have a way of making you want to root for them. Sometimes I think the national slogan should be “underdogs since 1755.” So I’m rooting for RTP to sell more series in the U.S.
