All the Light We Cannot See on Netflix was a poignant and moving drama that has made me want to read the book.

I watched All the Light We Cannot See on Netflix. This very moving four episode mini-series was a fictional account of several lives and how they all intersected during World War 2. The first character is Werner Pfennig, played to a tee by Louis Hofmann. This character is one I absolutely fell in love with. He's a real whiz at making and fixing and using radios, and the big hook for his character in the story is that (during the rise of Germany) he listened to illegal broadcasts from France. In particular, he learned a lot from a professor who spoke at length about science, and this professor made learning fun. The caveat then of all this learning is that Werner gets instilled with compassion and ends up with a lot of what we'd call modern liberal values at a time when everyone in his entire country is going far right, straight into fascism and brutality. There's a very uncomfortable scene in this show that is difficult to watch. It takes place in Berlin's most exclusive school of learning for radio construction. In this scene, Werner is forced to undergo a physical exam, and the racist instructor of the school (who is also clearly a pervert) is dead set on proving that Werner deserves to be there by virtue of his Aryan blood (and he's going to prove it by measuring every single thing on Werner's naked body). If he fails (of course) then Werner will just be killed. He does pass the test, but the scene feels extremely rapey, and I think its meant to be this way to illustrate how horrible these people actually were.

The second character that we end up spending a lot of time with is Marie-Laure LeBlanc, who is a blind girl that takes over broadcasts from within the French city of Saint-Malo. We see her (at first) broadcasting a reading of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea over a radio (we later learn that it is the same radio that the "professor" used years earlier to broadcast his science program and where he garnered listeners like Werner Pfennig). Sometime later, we learn that the braille book she's reading from is being used as a kind of code to the allies who are listening in on the broadcast, and they are able to bomb areas of Saint-Malo (thanks to these readings) that are infested with German soldiers hiding out. Because it is a fictional story, most of us can overlook how contrived these events are that bring Werner together with Marie--he being someone whose very work is listening to the radio and she being someone who broadcasts over the radio but is at odds with the fascist German military to which Werner owes his allegiance. If you can manage to overlook this contrivance that fictional tales often need to do, then the whole thing kind of comes together in a gorgeous dance of these two beautiful souls who must endure the harsh reality of the world around them.

The last character that really plays a strong part in this show is played by Mark Ruffalo. He's basically the "dad of the year." That's what I labeled him, anyway. He's the dad of Marie-Laure, incredibly accomplished...he's entrusted with all the keys of the museum of natural history in Paris and is essentially an expert on everything. What he doesn't know is probably not worth knowing. Into this enormous walking bank of knowledge is poured a ton of empathy. He's super soft-spoken, loves his daughter immensely (and treasures her despite the blind disability that he may believe he could have caused), and will stop at nothing to be a good teacher to his daughter. When they were living in Paris, he constructed (in miniature) the section of town they were living in out of wood. This diorama was how he taught his blind daughter where they lived and how she could find her way around town. When they fled to Saint-Malo after the Nazi occupation, he built another one so that she could learn her way around this new town. Into this then is a McGuffin of sorts that is introduced into the storyline: a gigantic diamond known as the "Sea of Flames." I'm not sure what purpose the diamond serves other than to add a layer of superstition and magic to the story. Legends say that anyone who touches the "Sea of Flames" will be cured of all things and live a wonderful life. But their loved ones will be struck down by something horrible. This is the thing that Daniel LeBlanc struggles with as he wonders if he is responsible for his daughter's blindness. Thus, the phrase "all the light we cannot see" becomes a really strong metaphor for the goodness in the world that exists in places where they eyes cannot detect it, and how souls can shine even in the darkest of days.

All in all, I really enjoyed this mini-series. I wish it had been longer. Four episodes did not seem like enough. It's definitely got me invested in reading the book, which I discovered won a Pulitzer Prize in 2014. If there's anything to complain about, it's maybe that the Nazi characters did come across as a bit cartoonish. However, the banality of evil is one of the most terrifying aspects of Nazi Germany, and that may be difficult to show on screen when you are given only four episodes. In some ways...maybe...it could be a Hallmark film since it has a happy ending (does that sound bad?). I've been told that the ending isn't happy in the book, and since I'm going to be reading that after Shogun, I'll be able to see all the changes. In the end, I love Louis Hofmann who is the actor that brought me to this show and it was the first time for me to see him speaking in English (he's basically the Timothee Chalamet of Germany). If you have a few hours to kill, I highly recommend you give this one a watch.

I won't be blogging on Monday, as it is a holiday (President's Day). So I'll see you back next Wednesday. This brings me to the end of the backlog of things that I wanted to talk about that I watched over the holidays. So, now I'll have to work on new material.