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.

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 City and the City is an interesting, intriguing, thought provoking fantasy/sci-fi detective thriller. It is shot in a grimy way with a budget that is not quite large enough to reach its ambitions but almost gets there by will power. If you look hard enough you can see some parts of Liverpool.

I did find the series rather confusing but during its transmission I visited Berlin and this gave me another dimension to understand the series.

David Morrissey plays a hard boiled detective Tyador Borlú , an Inspector in the Beszel Extreme Crime Squad. Beszel is a dinghy city with battered tower blocks, poor, with immigrants and a government that wants to drive the foreigners out. It is a Dystopian society not too far from East Germany.

Borlú is investigating the death of a an American female found dead in Beszel. However she was studying in Ul Qoma so it was a case of what was she doing here? Ul Qoma is a little bit upmarket, with glass towers, affluence and a little bit of style and intellectual sophistication. Yet it is also anti immigrant and deep down it is also a Dystopian society, maybe West Berlin of the 1970s.

Both cities exist in the same space, residents from both cities ignore each other and have been trained to unsee and ignore the other city. If you cross the cities illegally it is a breach and punishable unless you go through the official crossing points. A bit like Checkpoint Charlie.

As we follow Borlú's investigation with his new potty mouthed partner, we see flashbacks of his wife who disappeared some years earlier. Did she go to Ul Qoma and not return? Borlú crosses over to Ul Qoma and investigates some radicals who believe that there is a mythical third city called Orciny.

Morrissey is wonderful, he makes the series come alive. The City and the City is one of the best dramas of 2018.

Superbly atmospheric rendition, beautifully photographed and with strong characters. The first episode would surely be confusing for those not familiar with the book, but even then, the air of mystery and menace is so compelling that they must also be drawn in. Techniques that seem crude on the surface - blurring of part of an image to indicate that it's not culturally possible to perceive it, umlauts and other diacritics on signs in English - work surprisingly well. David Morrissey's gestures are sometimes a little irritating, especially his over-frequent technique of grimacing while he places one hand over his eyes to indicate that he's seeing something he shouldn't be seeing. Mandeep Dhillon great. Dominik Scherrer's soundtrack disappointing. An indication of how a two state solution could turn out? Loved it, but consider reading the novel first.

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?