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Welcome To The Village
May. 7th, 2013 01:35 pmBut, no, not THAT Village, although it bears some resemblance. Several of the protagonists become numbers, and no-one is really "a free man".
I had high hopes for this series, with Maxine Peake, John Simm, Juliet Stevenson. With the original conceit being that David Ryall is "the oldest man in Britain" and recalls the time when, as a boy, his country (and his village) went off to war.
Here was a chance for Britain to produce its own version of the magnificent Heimat -- a three-series combination that traced a German village and its inhabitants from 1919 through to 2000. The first series (the best), covers 1919 through to the 1960s, with single characters ageing from their 20s to their 60s.
In addition, the end of The Village covers similar ground to the start (and end) of Heimat, covering the building and eventual demolition of the War memorial.
While Heimat got it right, The Village, as was the case throughout the series, appeared to have victory within its grasp, and then to bottle it.
On the plus side, this series is rigidly grim. As someone shouts in the last episode, the only reason the period 1901 to 1914 was called "a golden age" was because the people doing the writing had more servants for less wages. For those in domestic service, despite what Downton Abbey would have you believe, it was far from "golden". That was why they left domestic service in droves to work in factories where the conditions were on a par with those hundreds of Bangladeshi workers crushed in a collapsed building last week.
Where Heimat was so good was in the way the massive events of the outside world were often only mentioned in passing. Everything was from the viewpoint of the village. In the UK series, the flaw was often that events of significance as we see them were given undue emphasis by the characters.
Clearly the series was made with the idea that it should be extended -- the "new" teenage Bert only appears in the final episode, and Simm and Peake look distinctly older in this episode. My fear would be that in a second series, once again, the episodes would be a peg for external events, such as the General Strike. There's one great moment early in Heimat where the major event of the episode is the appearance of the first car in the village. Echoes, once again, in The Village, where the first bus appears at the beginning of episode one. But more focus is on a left-handed boy being made to write with his right hand -- something that is of significance to us, but which probably at the time would have passed unremarked.
But the criticisms are easy. It got a lot right. I was worried about Simm's performance at the beginning, fearing that it would fall into the melodramatic, but he recovered well, as they say in the trade. So, I hope that it does get a second series, because this kind of thing, if it is allowed to spread over generations (through to World War II and beyond) can give superb depth to the roles of quality actors such as Peake and Simm.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I had high hopes for this series, with Maxine Peake, John Simm, Juliet Stevenson. With the original conceit being that David Ryall is "the oldest man in Britain" and recalls the time when, as a boy, his country (and his village) went off to war.
Here was a chance for Britain to produce its own version of the magnificent Heimat -- a three-series combination that traced a German village and its inhabitants from 1919 through to 2000. The first series (the best), covers 1919 through to the 1960s, with single characters ageing from their 20s to their 60s.
In addition, the end of The Village covers similar ground to the start (and end) of Heimat, covering the building and eventual demolition of the War memorial.
While Heimat got it right, The Village, as was the case throughout the series, appeared to have victory within its grasp, and then to bottle it.
On the plus side, this series is rigidly grim. As someone shouts in the last episode, the only reason the period 1901 to 1914 was called "a golden age" was because the people doing the writing had more servants for less wages. For those in domestic service, despite what Downton Abbey would have you believe, it was far from "golden". That was why they left domestic service in droves to work in factories where the conditions were on a par with those hundreds of Bangladeshi workers crushed in a collapsed building last week.
Where Heimat was so good was in the way the massive events of the outside world were often only mentioned in passing. Everything was from the viewpoint of the village. In the UK series, the flaw was often that events of significance as we see them were given undue emphasis by the characters.
Clearly the series was made with the idea that it should be extended -- the "new" teenage Bert only appears in the final episode, and Simm and Peake look distinctly older in this episode. My fear would be that in a second series, once again, the episodes would be a peg for external events, such as the General Strike. There's one great moment early in Heimat where the major event of the episode is the appearance of the first car in the village. Echoes, once again, in The Village, where the first bus appears at the beginning of episode one. But more focus is on a left-handed boy being made to write with his right hand -- something that is of significance to us, but which probably at the time would have passed unremarked.
But the criticisms are easy. It got a lot right. I was worried about Simm's performance at the beginning, fearing that it would fall into the melodramatic, but he recovered well, as they say in the trade. So, I hope that it does get a second series, because this kind of thing, if it is allowed to spread over generations (through to World War II and beyond) can give superb depth to the roles of quality actors such as Peake and Simm.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
