The City and the City

While reading The City and the City I remember thinking how it would make an exquisite blockbuster. The CGI was needed not to hide the lack of story, which seems to be the standard for contemporary mainstream, but to enhance it.

Yet we got a TV show. At first I dismissed it, but didn't resist the urge to watch. Eventually I think this is a pretty good TV show.

Obviously, this production can't surpass a blockbuster, but the cohabitation of Beszel and Ul Coma was done in a best possible way with the budget given. As if Eastern Europe of the Cold War with its police state met with the contemporary business districts in the Middle East, tightly controlled by law enforcement and secret service. Sarcastically speaking, the only difference between the two was the appearance.

And what made this TV show even better than the literally template was the ending. In the book it slid towards not particularly convincing fantasy. Here it was done in the only possible way for the given setting, as an anticlimax.

The confusing opening episode: the weird geography was bound to be disorientating, but the initial flashbacks of the detective's wife appeared, confusingly, to be contemporary.

The interesting journey of the middle two episodes: the teasing possibility of the existence of something mythical.

The disappointing resolution of the fourth and final episode: so this adaptation (if not the source novel itself) is really just a police procedural with a murder investigation that spans a border that's difficult to cross?

This four-part miniseries is set in the twin cities of Beszel and Ul Qoma; to an outsider they might appear to be one city but residents have trained themselves to completely ignore the other; to notice something in the other city is a crime even if it is right next to you. It is possible to legally pass from one city to the other but once across you must ignore where you came from. Those who cross illegally come to the attention of Breach; the shadowy organisation that polices the boundaries.

Tyador Borlú is an Inspector in the Beszel Extreme Crime Squad and his latest case involves an American student found dead in the city; she shoudn't have been there though as she was studying in Ul Qoma. His investigation will lead him to Ul Qoma, to radicals who believe there is actually a third hidden city called Orciny and ultimately to Breach; only then will he discover what happened to the girl and why... also how it was linked to the disappearance of his wife some years before.

I haven't read the book and when I saw the trailers for this series I thought it might be a bit too weird; but as I like science fiction and mysteries I thought I'd give it a go. I'm glad I did as I was quickly hooked; to the extent that I watched it in one day. The setting is intriguing and the makers did a fine job of depicting the cities; the 'other' city slightly out of focus often to one side of the screen. Usually in such a story one might expect one city to be dystopian and the other utopian but here both are fairly dystopian, even if Ul Qoma appears to be more advanced. The mystery is solid and the details of the girl's death should keep one guessing till the end. We also get political machinations and a high level of threat much of the time. David Morrissey does a really good job as Borlú and he is ably supported by Mandeep Dhillon, as his new partner Constable Corwi and Maria Schrader, as Ul Qoma's Senior Detective Dhatt, amongst others. Over all I'd say this won't be for everybody but it you want something rather different I'd certainly recommend giving this a go.

In Ralph Ellison's novel The Invisible Man he convincingly describes a society where he is not seen. This happens today all over. Aborigines are invisible to white Australians. Muslims are invisible to Christians and on it goes. The City just takes reality a little further and has a state imposed invisible "other class". If you don't follow the plot first time (you are not alone) I recommend a second look and you will pick up the subtle detail in a better appreciation of the fabric being woven here.

The analogy to our world from the fictional universe of China Mieville's 'The City and the City' is both obviousand exquisite: two cities, one gleaming and prosperous, the other more resembling Geroge Orwell's 1984, occupy the same place; the people survive by of the act of will of seeing only one world. Perhaps disappointingly (and especially given Mieville's own Marxist politics), the political dimension is rather under-developed in this BBC adaptation; and David Morrissey's mumbling monontone hero is a hard character to like. As in the best science fiction, there are many interesting ideas here (especially around the concept of "breaching" the two worlds), but they feel somewhat underdeveloped, and too much of the story comes in flashback form. It made me want to read the book to see if the original made more of its foundation.