I rated this show based on how the first season of it made me feel.
There are people complaining that the show about ballet doesn't have enough ballet in it. How short-sighted of them.
This show is not about ballet. It is about its protagonist - Claire. Or Clementine, as she's passionately nicknamed by an eccentric supporting character.
This is a show about inner darkness, and Claire striving to find a way out of hers.
With its spectacular cinematography with a carefully muted color palette, with the rich, dramatic, beautiful soundtrack, the whole thing has this surreal, almost David Lynch-like feel to it, it is filled with pathos, emotion, drama.
We are shown scenery and people, but we are made to see feelings.
There's nudity in the show, but it is not just thrown in "because they could". It is clearly part of the vision. People's emotions get stripped raw, and sometimes, so do their bodies.
I don't like pretense. I snub my nose at "Sundance Festival winner" type films. I don't like long pointless stares, long shots of swaying grass, camera angles that linger too long for no discernible reason - that sort of thing.
This show can be on the surface mistaken for a pretentious one. It could've gone that way very easily. For example, a long ramble of aforementioned supporting character could've been seen as a pretentious scene-filler - but, the actor is exceptional, and, like in David Lynch's surrealism, it all makes a certain kind of emotional sense.
The soundtrack doesn't just clank in background to match the tone of a scene. Like the camera, the music here is an actor with a voice of its own.
It feels like a part of a deliberately painted picture. It's not what the characters say or do, but why they're driven to it.
All of the cast are picked perfectly, and they feel real. Claire does not seem like an actress playing a role. She's simply Claire. It's hard to believe that the actress wasn't already Claire before the filming even started.
This show transports you into another world. It is an emotional journey, a rich atmospheric drama. It makes you feel what the protagonist feels, if you let yourself open to it.
Compared to this work, "Black Swan" is a pretentious flash in the pan. There's something grand here at play.
Let it play.
