Totems

I am on episode 5 and this is perhaps one of the 3 best new shows this year. Episode 1 was a bit slow but from episode 2, it gets much better. I am a fan of spy novels and shows and this is really satisfying. The actors are great especially Lambert Wilson, Niels Schneider, Vera Kolesnikova and José Garcia.

I really enjoyed this eight part series set around the Cold War in 1965. I thought the characters were well portrayed were very believable, each episode was very exciting.

Totems is a love story between two enemy spies. From East Berlin to Paris, from Northern Africa to the USSR, the action thriller is set in 1964 in the midst of the Cold War. It follows Francis Morizet, secret agent, struggling to carry the embarrassingly damaging and dark secret of a father's past while making his first entry into the field where he fatefully stumbles upon Lyudmila, a newly "recruited" KGB operative who is unwillingly thrust into the middle of continuous illegal intelligence operations between the SDECE and the CIA. Francis and Lyudmila Goloubeva (Vera Kolesnikova)find themselves struggling mightily for their countries and against the love they feel for each other.

Francis was recruited by Charles Contignet (Lambert Wilson) to dig into top-secret documents regarding a Russian orbiter and satellite/weapon, already under surveillance by French and CIA Intelligence. At the same time, Lyudmila, who is the daughter of Boris Goloubeva (Aleksey Guskov), a Russian scientist who plays a major role in development of the satellite/weapon currently being surveilled. Lyudmila's aspiration to be a pianist is interrupted by her forced KGB recruitment to spy on her father.

Totems, like many spy thriller genre films, assists the viewer in drawing a parallel or parallels with specific, current and present-day surveillance states and government largess by showing how two or more countries can wage an alleged "cold war" and use that scenario to bypass various personal and professional boundaries in order to keep an eye on those governments' own citizenry- exactly what we see happening in countries like the China, Russia, Argentina, Iran, Syria, Cuba, North Korea, Thailand, etc.

However, the multi-layered, superior cinema of Totems is an examination of far more than the spy-related shenanigans, roguery and chicanery. Totems is equally concerned with the interesting and compelling personal lives of the people trapped in the nightmarish suspense of the intelligence quagmire and espionage turmoil- the "antagonist to amours" romance between Lyudmila and Francis which evolves into a beautifully presented transcendence cold war into hot romance.

Stumbled across this well written, well acted and well filmed thriller and ended up watching it back to back and feeling sad at the end since it had finished. The story is not a typical Cold War US/UK vs USSR drama by way of the French angle and there are multiple storylines that twist and turn very cleverly. The characterisation is superb so you end up attached to the players liking their good points and understanding their flaws and their emotions. I particularly liked the mixed European dialogue and despite not being a French speaker was in no way put off and could easily follow the story. The attention to detail in the scenes cannot be questioned. I am a car fan and every street scene in Paris, Prague, Moscow was filled with exactly the right vehicles. The fashions and house/office interiors were spot on. I also loved the airport and the mid 60s commercial flight scenes. There are some classic cliff hangers that in pre-streaming days would you have had your desperate for next week's episode as well as other familiar techniques to keep the tension and intrigue going but at no time was it cheesy. Well worth watching. Congratulations to all who put this together. I was very well entertained.

This is the best series I have seen in a long time. A great plot, perfect pacing, great acting and direction, and impressive production values. Many scenes are shot in evocative and atmospheric locations in Prague, Paris, Moscow, etc. I hope Amazon keep making series' of this high quality.