The Village

The Village captures you with it's imagery, but holds you with the characters and superb acting. It's sometimes hard to watch as the grim reality of early 20th century rural English life is relentless.

The BBC should be praised for not giving it a coat of historical whitewash and trying to depict life in the period with with both the warts and the beauty. Ultimately it is the characters that you become invested in. Not the stock portrayals of the noble working class or morally vacuous upper class. The main characters have layers and depth that makes them both interesting and empathetic. They are brought to life by terrific performances and you believe them completely.

Overall this is superbly done.

IN A NUTSHELL: Wonderful cast of talented actors, terrific cinematography. Terrible scriptwriting to the point where at times it's nearly unwatchable.

It would take far too long and too many words to detail what's wrong with this production, and you don't want the spoilers anyway. So I'll give you the mile-high viewpoint, and if you watch, see if you agree.

Above all, this is yet another depiction of the 19th and 20th Century chock-full of spurious 21st Century mores. As if people THEN thought the same way people do NOW. That ruins the historicity of it for me.

The writers are far too intent on preaching modernist socio-political thought to give you an accurate depiction of life in rural England in the 1910s, 20s and 30s.

In every instance of moral dilemma - which after all is what drama is inevitably about - what someone WANTS is always given precedence over what they OUGHT to do from a traditional ethical and moral perspective. In fact, "what one ought to do" is uniformly presented as stunted or even evil. No, you shouldn't honor your marriage vows if you FEEL like doing something else. No, you shouldn't hold fast to your religious convictions, because religion is for nutters. Feel like having sex on the spur of the moment? Go for it; it's what you WANT to do (outmoded ideas of moral fidelity are barbaric anyway).

I watched this because the actors in the drama manage to rise above bad writing and horribly inaccurate social history. The scenes of rural life are breathtaking.

But the story is not. It's maudlin, prissy and factually inaccurate.

Excellent photography and detailed realistic sets, dress, and etc. The bleak reality of farm life in a small isolated Yorkshire farm. When I think of England it is the England of the countryside , small villages and farms.This York. program is set earlier than Herriots era. It shows the brutal reality of life before social program s to aid in support. One could say this life was kind of glossed over in Herriots series and Downton Abbey dom. My wifes reaction was the series was depressing. I think it is a realistic one. A quality British TV program. I has it all. Ingrained idiot upper class, local folk in awe of these fools while carrying water and doing their scut work. Activist suffragette , innocent patriotic war fervor, WW1 and enlisting as a positive move up. Very limited prospects in the country - I think a mass movement to the cities had been happening during this period. Prospects n the UK had gotten worse as competition with other nations- Germany and the US intensified. Quality TV.

Yes I agree it's mournful, depressing, grim and harsh but that was the reality of life then. If your harvest failed your family could die, there was no public money, or other jobs to be had if you lived in a small remote community.

In fact watching a drama which is so well executed, scripted (and stunningly filmed) reminds me of how fortunate we are today. It's also poignant to see the excitement of those enlisting to World War one, a very real honour at the time and what subsequently twisted into an unimaginable horror. How much has changed in 100 years, how well the BBC has done in creating another masterpiece series.

A little perspective is a wonderful thing and I certainly recommend this series to those who have a penchant for social drama, as I do.

The Oldest Briton looks back on life in a rural English village during WWI, much of which he seemingly learned about through constant lurking and eavesdropping. The usual suspects are all here: indomitable mother, alcoholic father, idealistic preacher's kid, grasping bourgeoisie, scheming parvenu, morally bankrupt upper class scion, disillusioned upper class scion, nutso upper class daughter, conchie, and...brother Joe. It's Joe's story that occasionally elevates The Village, especially in E5. Otherwise, it drifts along comfortably, with nice acting-especially from Rupert Evans and the ever-reliable Juliet Stevenson-disguising the pedestrian screenplay.