Le Bazar de la Charité

Camille lou (someone who I had never heard of before) absolutely captivates your attention through out this intensely dramatic, tightly woven tale of four women and their families set in period France. The French mansions and scenery are gorgeous, beautiful cinematography, and a villain you really hate and keeps you on edge. class warfare, love, politics, revenge and revolution .. thoroughly binge worthy

Here's the deal: I watched the 1st episode and thought it was terrible EXCEPT for the cinematography. It's French and dubbed in English... TERRIBLE ENGLISH! So, I went to my old standby, IMDbTV, to check the reviews, as I often do. I saw one review in particular that insisted it must be watched with the original French speaking actors' voices and subtitled in English (for me). This review stated that the English dubbing is so terrible and hokey that it has a terrible effect on the performances and story line. Well, I went back and did this for the 2nd episode and could not stop watching from that moment on! WHAT A HUGE IMPROVEMENT! This is a great binge-worthy show and I fell in love (or hate where appropriate) with the actors. This is well written, superbly acted and filmed beautifully. After watching it this way for a few minutes, I was completely immersed. Watch it the right way and you'll thoroughly enjoy it!

A very entertaining series with three women leading the way, with, of course, the usual men-and occasional woman- getting in the way. Do not confuse the story with the real fire of history, or any of the characters with real people. The plot devices are soapy but most of them work due to the great acting, script and cinematography.

The one plot line that just doesn't work because it's so transparently bad is the one with the woman whose face is partially burned but hardly enough to disfigure her or disguise her. Her use of a thin see through veil is a joke, and she should have been given a mask, but I'm guessing that the actress and the Director didn't want her hidden from us. So we're to believe "they" can't recognize her while we can. Voila!

First of all I have to say that I have no criticism, whatsoever, of this series. I am a student of the French Language so I recommend watching it in French with sub-titles, as watching it dubbed loses more than half of the atmosphere.

This is a fictional tale set in the aftermath of a genuine event of 1897 when there was a huge and terrible fire at a charity event in Paris which claimed the lives of 125 people, most of whom were aristocratic ladies. The story revolves around the lives of three women who survived the fire: one unscathed but affected, one badly burnt and disfigured and one who is uninjured but................well! Wait and see.

The drama is set in Paris in 1897 and the producers have done a great job of capturing the atmosphere of the city and the era, the attitudes of the people and the relationships between the different sociopolitical groups. The dramatic pace of the series is well maintained and there is a certain degree of "cliffl hanger" at the end of each episode, to the extent that I will admit that I was forced to "binge" watch it.

The plot is relatively simple but with a few twists and turns in a rather "Dickensian" fashion which results in a nice classical structure of having a beginning, a middle and an end. However, it is not without some excitement and a fair amount of tension. OK! So some will say that the ending is predictable, so what! I loved it.

The "18" rating is totally unjustified and the description "strong sex" has obviously been applied by a Sunday School teacher who has yet to experience sex of any kind. There is, perhaps, a view of one or two female bottoms & one nipple. but that's all, although there is some rather tender, and carefully edited, lovemaking.

I rate this as a thoroughly entertaining piece of drama, well worth watching. It is well acted and extremely well produced with good scenery and atmosphere. Overall I was left feeling happy and glad I'd watched it.

I'm not a huge fan of French movies (subtitled) or love stories; however, this movie has changed both of those perspectives completely! With a cast of wonderfully portrayed characters, I was spell bound for two days watching this series to its eighth episode. In a time of political upheaval, silent, strong women are pitted against the bravado of their wealthy husbands, but with promise of a new day of reason, and compassion on the horizon among the young and the working class. My blood boiled as the perfect villain slithered his way through each episode, and I wept, as much, through the sensitive love scenes (thank you for keeping the nudity scarce--always felt it detracted from the plot). Thank you for releasing a series that kept me thinking about what was important during this time period and the wonder of excellently written twists in a plot. I can't wait for the second season. Please keep it classy like the first.