Notre-Dame, la Part du feu

At first I thought the series had potential: the nonlinear story and the photography caught me at the beginning and made me want to continue watching. But from the second episode on, you have to ignore a lot of nonsense to keep watching. The series is supposed to be a realistic drama, but one of the main characters, Max, is like Bruce Willis in Die Hard. Apart from a few firefights, all characters are dumb and reckless.

I felt like it deserved a better direction, cause the plot isn't bad. For the amount of money spent in the production (the effects are great), they could've invested a bit more and delivered something more credible. It's only worth watching if you like the French language, otherwise I wouldn't have finished it.

This movie has lots of side/sub plots that kinda take away from the main thing - that being the fire. But the thing I find most jarring is the fact that in multiple scenes the firefighters are depicted in extremely smoky environments not wearing any breathing apparatus. At one point they are trapped inside the notre dame and shown in extreme levels of smoke, and despite having tanks on their back, none of them use their masks, and none of them (apart from the asthmatic journalist who is also trapped inside) cough or show any difficulties breathing. (The asthmatic journalist only coughs on occasions and has to use her inhaler once). I kinda think the reality is that they would all be dead.

I get what they were trying to do here; the human stories of nine Parisians--during the night the cathedral burned and how the event was a common factor in all of them.

Except ... not really.

In theory, it could have been very good, and some parts, like the skill of the producers in integrating real footage of the fire with their film, is good.

It has a few excellent dramatic moments but although some of the story lines jell, others don't and most have nothing to do with the fire except as a momentary distraction.

I also get that in making a TV drama you have to take some license with reality. But the howlers about the firefighters pointed out by others here are valid. That lackadaisical treatment might have passed in 1960s or '70s but audiences are much more sophisticated now.

And I get that in real life, even during unfolding disasters, people aren't always focused on the event. The French pride themselves on their style and skill with psychology.

But the character who keeps saying that 'everyone remembers what they were doing when Michael Jackson died' is jarring. I don't. A lot of people don't. And in the context of a story what does this even mean?

Are we supposed to compare the burning of Notre-Dame of Paris to Jackson's death?

Good psychology in that it sticks on my mind but bad in that--besides the interspersed footage of the real fire--this maudlin comparison is going to be my takeaway.

That and the haunting suspicion that this whole thing was employed by the screenwriters as a vehicle for a lot of leftover plot notions rejected from other scripts and all crammed into this one.

Considered as a soap opera this would pass. As a soap opera with a fire in the background it stumbles along. As a drama about the fire itself--which is how it was sold to us--falls flat on its face. You're much better off just watching archived news reports.

In my opinion it would've been alot better if it focused all of its attention on the fire, I can get that they packed it with all the other stuff to prolong the runtime, but still.

I don't know if it's the actors or the writing but most of the characters are pretty unlikeable, I never found a f to give about most of them.

I understand that the firefighters had their breathing masks off so we can see their faces but it's still pretty jarring to see people run into fires and not have a proper source of oxygen, just made me worry about the actors tbh.

Gets a 4 coz French is a cool language and at least it was short. Would not recommend unless you've watched literally everything else on Netflix, even then, just take a nap instead.

Unlike many in here, I really enjoyed it. I cannot understand all the negative comments, many of them, to me so ignorant...... It was a fictional drama presented in an individual way.

I liked the way that the disparate stories, evidently from accounts of those involved in events of that night, wandered in and out.

The integration of real footage of the fire, with Netflix's art, was impressive.

However, it's a pity that so many found it so difficult to follow. I wondered if we all had watched the same series. Sometimes we have to get beyond having to have everything laid out before us.

I thought the acting was very good and .....