Alumim

/refers to Season 1/

I have seen dozens of Israeli series, but they tend to deal with tensions between Jews and Arabs and/or power and corruption issues... Here, the topics named are present as well, but slightly in the background, as the main topic is severe growing pains and coming-of-age of poor adolescents / at-risk students. The share of hope in this Series is significantly less than that of despair, and the principle "actions have consequences" is constantly and vehemently visible... One can also ponder on an over the Western approaches to deal with problematic youngsters - are the money spent and methods used really becoming?

The characters seem realistic and performances good (incl. Most "new faces" to me as smaller countries tend to use the same actors in similar productions). The performances by Shani Cohen and Amir Tessler were most to my liking.

Despite Alumim is not an easy watch (also very urban environment, limited show of beautiful Israeli landscape etc.), often rather painful, I am looking forward to see Season 2 - as Season 1 ended in an intruiging manner.