High Water

This show tells a story of my town of Wroclaw, I was 17 years old when that happen and remember it so vividly. I remember the anticipation in the air, the fear, but also people saying "nothing will happen". All these conflicting feelings and messages have been portrayed so well in this show. 25 years after the tragedy, it brought all the memories back. I recognise the old footage intertwined in this show from news outlets, that's such a great idea to add it.

I love this show, because it portrays the tragedy really well, the politics and the family drama that all took place during that July. Sure, some of it is fictional, but each family I know in Wroclaw had their own share of drama, and while the show made some creative decisions, the spirit of that is just right. The town of Kety and the villages fighting for it is actually called Lany (south east of Wroclaw).

I gave this 10 stars because all the characters are incredibly believable, there is a great attention to detail to make Wroclaw look exactly like 1997, and I can feel the writers clearly took a great care to understand what people went through and portray all the stupid decisions that were made.

I remember reading an interview where one of the members of the HQ said to the men in the room "this discussion is all fascinating, but it should be taking place in an university lecture hall not here! Here we need decisions".

High Water shows the greatest ecological disaster after the Second World War. It's done with great authenticity and the actors delivered great performance. I was especially surprised by the sceneries of the high water situation in the city. You could believe that it has happened just now and there is no way out. It's really amazing to see it.

I find there are not too many series that extends this water catastrophe and the running of each episode is good too. So if you like this genre of movies check it out. If you want to see another top environmental disaster movie then watch the earthquake Hollywood film San Andrea.

That this show is based on the 1997 floodings in Poland, makes it all the more interesting. Taking place just 8 years after the Berlin Wall fell, we also get to see how the old Soviet bureaucracy still had a lot of influence,

One can clearly see that much effort has been put in making this show period authentic. The cars, props and the way people dress just transport you back to the mid 90's. It is just awesome to see the cars that we were driving in some 25 years ago. This is also one of the reasons that I like for instance the highly popular show "Stranger Things", since it transports you back to the 80's.

The dramatization of the events also include a storyline about a female hydrologist and her interaction with the government and the citizens living in the endangered areas. This storyline however is completely fictitious and is partially over-the-top. A man that she 'coincidentally' meets early on - a citizen living in the area whose father is in the hospital - leads a little uprising which just makes the story difficult to believe.

Overall, the acting and cinematography are pretty decent. The increasing amount of internationally produced movies and shows, clearly show that quality content is increasingly able to compete with U. S.-produced content. One big gap however is still caused by the often low-quality dubbing. I myself really prefer to watch content with english dubbing - instead of using subtitles - and the english dubbing in this show just isn't realistic. The voices do not fit and the lip-movements are noticeably unsychronized with the voice.

Summarizing, I would have preferred it if the producers would have solely focussed on the real events. I think that an alternative edit of the movie - where lots of the interactions of the woman hydrologist would be removed - would make a way more interesting show. The current 6 episodes could thereby be reduced to 4 episodes, which would make it more fit with what amount of time I would want to put in this show. Those 4 episodes would make me rate this show with 7 stars, instead of the 6 stars it deserves in its current 6-episode setup.

Only one thing ruined the 10* review from me... In the beginning of the first episode, action was set in Poland in 1997 but the actress was wearing T-shirt from Hard Rock Cafe Amsterdam which was established 2 years later, in 1999. Bad research from producers, I guess. That was very emotional time to watch the flood on news in real life, real time. Poland, Czech Republic and Germany and other countries in central Europe had to deal with this power of nature. Earth sends us singnals from decades, to help it restore its natural beauty. Good that someone creates shows like that to remind how powerful nature is. Quite interesting tv series indeed...

This is one of Netflix's rare masterpieces. Zulewska is particularly brilliant in her role that she plays to perfection... just like the whole casting. This true story is told in a thrilling, moving and stressful way. The fast script keeps us constantly on the alert... and I found no boredom by unnecessary scenes except perhaps during the last episode. In addition, we like to hate some of the characters.

I also loved how the team was able to reproduce authenticity of the time.

Like a book that you can't stop reading... I watched the six episodes back-to-back on a Sunday.

The Director mastered this serie.