TELEVISION: A Small Light - episode 1
Jun. 2nd, 2024 03:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
feather_ghyllA Small Light - 1.1 Pilot
Telling a familiar story from a different perspective, and apparently based on a book, this TV drama, now on UKTV Play, focuses on Miep Gies, Otto Frank’s secretary and her role in helping hide him and his family, including, of course, Anne Frank. If nothing else, it reminded me how long it has been since I last read ‘The Diary of Anne Frank’, and they do a good job of showing how vibrant Anne was, even though she’s very much a supporting character. I wasn’t entirely convinced/won over by the conceit that the characters were speaking Dutch when they’re speaking English, then characters would switch to German when speaking. I found the dialogue a touch too modern, too.
We followed Miep (Bel Mooney) from 1933, when her parents decided they’d had enough of her carefree, irresponsible ways and suggested that instead of getting drunk and sleeping in late and being unemployed, she married her brother…
Oh, it wasn’t like that, he was her adopted brother.
No, THAT’S STILL WEIRD. (I’m not sure if this was a made-up detail or something that really happened.) Miep laughed it off, as did her adopted brother who was secretly gay, I don’t know if that was true either or how it will play out with the Nazi occupation. Miep got a job as Otto Frank’s secretary, despite her lack of experience and informality. Bel Mooney is fine in the lead role with her big, big eyes, although it almost felt like she was in a different drama to Liev Schrieber’s Frank.
Although Miep is the main character, so we learned how she handily spoke German and about some of her psychological make-up, there did seem to be weird gaps in her story. She got involved with nice, emotionally literate Jan, played by Joe Cole. They had got married by the time the Nazis had marched into the Netherlands despite Miep’s certainty that they wouldn’t. Only slowly did she realise the real danger the Jewish Franks, who’d already fled Germany, were in. The central point was that she had a good heart and was willing to help them.
The drama returned to what we’d seen in the opening scene, her helping teenage Margot Frank get through a Nazi checkpoint to the hiding place that Margot’s father had only started to set up for them. By the time we saw it play out fully, we had a better understanding of how much danger Margot was in (and Miep for helping her.) But there is a bit of a tension that although Miep is the main character of this adaptation and of her life, the narrative we all know isn’t about her (although I don’t know what did happen to her, so that’s new to me.) I’m curious as to whether eight episodes will feel like the right length for this drama.
Telling a familiar story from a different perspective, and apparently based on a book, this TV drama, now on UKTV Play, focuses on Miep Gies, Otto Frank’s secretary and her role in helping hide him and his family, including, of course, Anne Frank. If nothing else, it reminded me how long it has been since I last read ‘The Diary of Anne Frank’, and they do a good job of showing how vibrant Anne was, even though she’s very much a supporting character. I wasn’t entirely convinced/won over by the conceit that the characters were speaking Dutch when they’re speaking English, then characters would switch to German when speaking. I found the dialogue a touch too modern, too.
We followed Miep (Bel Mooney) from 1933, when her parents decided they’d had enough of her carefree, irresponsible ways and suggested that instead of getting drunk and sleeping in late and being unemployed, she married her brother…
Oh, it wasn’t like that, he was her adopted brother.
No, THAT’S STILL WEIRD. (I’m not sure if this was a made-up detail or something that really happened.) Miep laughed it off, as did her adopted brother who was secretly gay, I don’t know if that was true either or how it will play out with the Nazi occupation. Miep got a job as Otto Frank’s secretary, despite her lack of experience and informality. Bel Mooney is fine in the lead role with her big, big eyes, although it almost felt like she was in a different drama to Liev Schrieber’s Frank.
Although Miep is the main character, so we learned how she handily spoke German and about some of her psychological make-up, there did seem to be weird gaps in her story. She got involved with nice, emotionally literate Jan, played by Joe Cole. They had got married by the time the Nazis had marched into the Netherlands despite Miep’s certainty that they wouldn’t. Only slowly did she realise the real danger the Jewish Franks, who’d already fled Germany, were in. The central point was that she had a good heart and was willing to help them.
The drama returned to what we’d seen in the opening scene, her helping teenage Margot Frank get through a Nazi checkpoint to the hiding place that Margot’s father had only started to set up for them. By the time we saw it play out fully, we had a better understanding of how much danger Margot was in (and Miep for helping her.) But there is a bit of a tension that although Miep is the main character of this adaptation and of her life, the narrative we all know isn’t about her (although I don’t know what did happen to her, so that’s new to me.) I’m curious as to whether eight episodes will feel like the right length for this drama.
