Litsid: The Whores

We've been waiting for a good history series in Estonia for quite a long time. This one is different, not your typical heroism tale but from a view point of hookers, who are drawn into political games. It's been compared to Babylon Berlin and Dawnton Abbey, even as the budget is like thousand times smaller. It takes off slow but once it gets going, it's an exiting tale of spies and murder but first of all a story of a country drawn slowly into war and losing its independence. Very good actors.

This serial explains much about history. But you also need to know history. It's very anti communist, but you are wrong if you think it's anti Russian. There are several Russian characters in film, who suffer from communism and hate socialist regime. Stalin killed millions and millions Soviet citizens and you were still obliged to love him and the party. Then when the war begins, you're in between these tyrants, so you either have to love Hitler or love Stalin, even when you hate them both and want to be left in peace. I think more people in Russia should see this, because we were taught history differently in school and we think that small countries around us are very mean to us. We have countless films about nazi army occupying countries, but Soviet army did the same thing in Poland, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and other places. History can be very painful to accept, but this serial is very humane and you can feel empathy for most characters, regardless of their nation.

I watched bravely the first 15 min of this opus. It was boooring. So I can't even recommend this to those of you having nothing else to do. Better have a cup of tea and take a nap.

If you like dreamlike atmosphere and nostalgic look, you may like this. It might appear somewhat slow at first, but once the action picks up, it draws you in for good. Very good actresses and dialogue, lots of sweet music and vintage costumes and sets. Spies, enemy soldiers, traitors. Everybody plays everybody.

I'm not sure why this receives such strong rating. As other reviewers have noted, it's an interesting premise. But, as others have complained, it is also quite slow. In many ways, it is quite old-fashioned, almost like a kind of quasi-melodrama, with many declaimed and over-acted lines. I'm not sure whether this is deliberate, artistic effort to give a sense of stage-plays of the time or whether it's just over-acting and cumbersome directing. Most episodes have a heavy-handed pedagogical slant, with the actors being used to declaim key events at the beginning of the war, particularly in regard to Russia's invasion of Finland. Obviously, they need to find a way to communicate this to many viewers, but it adds to the slow pace and sense of clumsy direction. The final episode leaves a sense that further series were anticipated but not shot, so viewers are also left with a sense of being left hanging.

A pity. Promising, but it never quite works.