I don't understand why still in this day and age, romanian screemwriters seem incapable of writing believable and natural sounding dialogues for romanian actors. This is supposed to be a thriller-drama, but most often you can't tell the difference between this and something like Comrade Detective (which is an american parody of what a ignorant american would believe a communist detective show would sound like). The acting is not bad per se, it's just that the lines are so badly written, I imagine it's difficult for them to make them sound better. As an example the interpretation of Elena Ceausescu is like a caricature produced by chatgpt, similar to the interpretation of someone who has never seen her or never heard her speak, and only knew her through a single book or article.
The overall story (although highly and sometimes unnecessarily dramatized) is not that bad. With some more realistic adjustments it would be fine for the genre, if only so much of the dialogues would not be so cringe.
Most actors themselves (especially the romanian, german and almost all nationalities except the americans) are quite talented actors. Some of them overact, some don't seem quite sure what to do with the materials, some manage to at least mask the bad writing.
Not sure if the lines in german, french, russian and other such languages, sound natural, as I don't speak the languages themselves, but it was anyway a good choice to have multi-national cast, helps with the immersion, such as it is. The american actors are a mixed bag, some decent some clearly 4th level actors that you most probably never have and never will see again.
The show looks good, good work by the set dressing, costumes, prop dept. Editing is decent enough and cinematography looks peofessional. No less than expected of a HBO production.
Can't speak of the direction, as I can't be sure which of the interpetation choices are coming from the actor, the script or the director.
All in all, I would not recommend this, there's 99% chance you still haven't seen all series or cinema masterpieces or even well done blockbuster movies and shows that are out there, from american, romanian and other countries. And if I am right, then you have countless choices instead of this.
We have talented people in Romania, we now have more means to produce good stuff vs 20 years ago. We just need to:
1. Understand that we should not make american movies, as we are not american.
2. Learn how to distance ourselves stylistically from our old movies, series and theatre, and for fcks sake write some dialogues that are sound like real people and are less cringe.
The overall story (although highly and sometimes unnecessarily dramatized) is not that bad. With some more realistic adjustments it would be fine for the genre, if only so much of the dialogues would not be so cringe.
Most actors themselves (especially the romanian, german and almost all nationalities except the americans) are quite talented actors. Some of them overact, some don't seem quite sure what to do with the materials, some manage to at least mask the bad writing.
Not sure if the lines in german, french, russian and other such languages, sound natural, as I don't speak the languages themselves, but it was anyway a good choice to have multi-national cast, helps with the immersion, such as it is. The american actors are a mixed bag, some decent some clearly 4th level actors that you most probably never have and never will see again.
The show looks good, good work by the set dressing, costumes, prop dept. Editing is decent enough and cinematography looks peofessional. No less than expected of a HBO production.
Can't speak of the direction, as I can't be sure which of the interpetation choices are coming from the actor, the script or the director.
All in all, I would not recommend this, there's 99% chance you still haven't seen all series or cinema masterpieces or even well done blockbuster movies and shows that are out there, from american, romanian and other countries. And if I am right, then you have countless choices instead of this.
We have talented people in Romania, we now have more means to produce good stuff vs 20 years ago. We just need to:
1. Understand that we should not make american movies, as we are not american.
2. Learn how to distance ourselves stylistically from our old movies, series and theatre, and for fcks sake write some dialogues that are sound like real people and are less cringe.