itt: non-english-language netflix series you recommend (or not) and commentary thereon

for some reason i didn't register FLAVORFUL ORIGINS with this thread last year: second series is now up, 15-min eps, a fabulously filmed and extremely addictive chinese-made guide to regional chinese cuisine and ingredients, with a weirdly written or translated english voice-over, so far set in chaoshan and yunnan provinces

I’ve started watching Gogol on Amazon Prime, which is a deeply silly, but entertaining, cross between Sleepy Hollow and Penny Dreadful.

The Platform (originally 'El Hoyo' in Spanish) is decent if you like dark, dystopian sci-fi/horror type things. Its social commentary may not be the most original, but it's pretty well executed all round and nicely shot and acted.

Spanish language read probably best for after you watch it: https://www.espinof.com/criticas/hoyo-que-alegoria-social-mordaz-satira-voracidad-humana

I was wondering about this. I put it on my list to watch but I hadn't heard anything about it. (watching new season of Money Heist.

A friend suggested it, with a not for the squeamish proviso (which I'd reiterate), so my partner & I gave it a go last weekend and both enjoyed it. It's not spectacular, but worth its 90 minutes or so, if you're in the mood for that kind of darker thing.

yeah, i am not squeamish at all. But I don't want to be really disappointed by the ending which is what ends up happening with a lot of things that I have watched recently in that spirit (High-Rise, El Bar).

that weird cam-girl horror? thing on netflix.

i watch quite a lot of k drama but i'm always dubious about the translations. is "punk" really the go to insult in korea? lot of "you rascal" and "gosh" as well.

anyway the lead actress in 'My Love From Another Star' is really good at comedic scenes.

The Platform was pretty fun except for a few short scenes of ultra-violence. Social commentary was both far too on-the-nose and (by the end) confused, it's much more rewarding to just take this things literally, i.e. it's a film about a prison hundreds of storeys high where prisoners can only eat the leftovers from the cells above them - that's it. No other readings required.

Betaal, the new series from the makers of Ghoul / Blumhouse, seems pretty good so far. Fascist Indian police vs the zombie remnants of a imperial British battalion.

the first episode of 'It's Okay To Not Be Okay' really blew me away. beautifully shot, ridiculously stylish lead character, much more serious and i guess ambitious than I was expecting and a couple of lovely animated scenes. kinda bummed that i have to wait for new episodes weekly tbh.

okay episode two is good too. got even grittier and just how over the edge the lead female character is is open to even more question. also features the most incredible office chair I've ever seen plus an a + book signing outfit.

I'm enjoying 'Unit 42'. A belgian cybercrime police prodcedural thing.

i finally and extremely belatedly got round to bingeing ENGRENAGE/SPIRAL, all eight series

just three series if they edited out the words merde, putain and pute

Looks like I'll never get to watch a whole series on the platform

I don't think anyone's surprised by this, and pouring millions into transphobic comedy specials to court controversy was hardly a longterm solution, couple that with the price increases that offer no additional value, and the compounding cancellations that led to viewer apathy... https://t.co/XMHnHQui82

— Sleepy Sloth (@CaseyExplosion) April 20, 2022

be more interested in this off-the-cuff laziest of tweet-takes if it in any way addressed netflix as a platform for non-english-material

(or perhaps less parochially as a successful platform for cross-linguistic consumption)

this thread features a more interesting thesis (material non-english if you stretch a point lol)

from the replies it seems like the main thrust of this criticism is that that one viking show has a woman in it https://t.co/qjmaA7RwuR

— flglmn (@flglmn) April 20, 2022

Would subscribe.

Netflix should have a feature where if you are browsing the menu for more than 10 minutes it just starts showing RoboCop

— rubot (@rubot) April 20, 2022

heres how you fix netflix. if theres a movie that netflix doesnt have you put in a request on the forums and then if someone has the movie, they upload it so that now its available

— suncoast employee in button up flame shirt (@gun_toucher) April 20, 2022

not noticed this thread before.

watched all the bbc4 things except montalbano which never clicked with me.

More 4 has ok to good Walter Presents stuff every week too, currently Crimson Rivers (french)

would always laugh at spiral because they seemingly had one shot a week just designed to shock. dead prostitute in a skip, dead baby, head in fireplace and the scene with the drug mule they gave laxatives to...

Not series, but still.

80% of what I watch on Netflix is non-English-language action trash. I do not give the tiniest fuck about their original content; gimme 90 minutes of Indonesian dudes kicking, stabbing and shooting each other and you've earned my $15 for the month. https://t.co/kympWdiNCT

— burning ambulance (NOW A RECORD LABEL!) (@burn_amb) April 20, 2022

Quite an option interesting piece (though a bit long) on showrunning and how that's changing because of streaming.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/epxeze/television-is-in-a-showrunning-crisis

Though it's good that 20+ ep seasons are shortening, in the main..

Recently:
Dead Water: Finnish ... felt a bit like The Bridge and The Killing ...
Capitani: season 2 is quite different from season 1

Gloria -- Portuguese; set in 1968; I really am liking it (2 more episodes to go) ... it makes me want to ask Daniel_Rf a bunch of questions about politics!

Haven't seen! My Portuguese netflix knowledge revolves mainly about the upcoming series about that time a shipload of cocaine sunk near the island I lived on and everyone went coke crazy for a few years (my mum ran a club at the time and all the musicians turned insufferable).

Happy to answer any questions :)

oh, the show is a spy thriller where the main character is a KGB agent and son of a government minister. The main character Joao appears to have been "converted" after serving in the military in Angola ... so there are issues re colonialism, and Portuguese "independence" from American influence ... like there are KGB agents, CIA agents, and PICE (?) agents?

Salazar is the head of the government -- I think you mentioned something about him in another thread -- re the revolution?

as in I have questions about historical background lol, not the show!

There was a military coup in the 1920's and Portugal basically stayed a dictatorship from then until 1974. Salazar first made a name for himself as the finance minister and then rose to become head of state, ushering in the Estado Novo regime, initially very much aligned with Hitler and Mussolini but this aspect got phased out a bit in the regime's public presentation when WWII erupted and Portugal decided to stay neutral (many ppl will still bring this up as a point in Salzar's favour, though personally I think "yeah we're sitting this one out" is a morally indefensible stance to take on that particular conflict). Cultivated the image of an austere, frugal, religious man - his most famous quote is "if you knew how hard it is to lead, you'd be happier to obey".

He actually died a few years before the revolution - famously fell of a chair, which is awesome because any online interaction with a Portuguese facist can be concluded by just posting a chair. His successor, Marcelo Caetano, promised democratic reforms (primavera marcelista) but failed to follow through on that, ultimately leading to the Carnation Revolution (but that might be spoilers!).

The Portuguese Communist Party was for decades the only real resistance to Salazar. Very much aligned with the Soviet Union, as most communist parties in Europe were. They're still around, and a bigger party than you'd think, though their voter base is very much aged. I have...complicated feelings about them, they def fucked up on a lot of social issues for a long time and the fealty to Moscow was often indefensible. But anyone living in Portugal now owes them a debt, innumerable stories of bravery and intelligence in the face of an absolutely horrid regime.

The colonial war really kicked off in the early 60's, though before that Portugal had already lost colonies in India. But what's viewed as the Colonial War in Portuguese ppl's mindsets was the conflict against liberation movements in Mozambique, Guinea Bissau, Cape Verde and above all Angola. The many many lives lost in these were the defining factor in bringing about the revolution, so one could say without much exageration that Portugal also owes its freedom to the liberation movements of these African countries.

Relationship with the US is tricky...the US knew the main opponents of Salazar were the commies, and obv preferred a fascist to a communist. That being said around the same time the liberation movements sprung up there were motions from the US in the UN for Portugal to give up its colonies, which caused a lot of friction obv. This was of course not only due to postcolonial solidarity but also because the US wanted stronger access to those countries, Angola in particular being v rich in natural resources. Pretty much every liberation guerrila in any Portuguese colony was funded either by the CIA or the KGB, as these things go. Salazar reacted by trying to rebrand the colonies as not colonies at all but rather part of Portugal - thus the famous slogan "Portugal is not a small country".

thank you! this is the exact context I was hoping for! All of these things are alluded to or play a part in the plot of this series. ... In the previous episode I watched Salazar had had an "accident" (lol at the chair) and there was a new leader. The PICE, as represented in the show, are horrible and make the CIA people look humanitarian.

also watched: Unpermitted Living - Spanish - organized crime patriarch with alzheimers - and issues of succession. The first season is pretty compelling, lots of melodrama, no one is 100% horrible except for Freddy the upstart Colombian drug dealer, and then the relatives that show up near the end who were living in Mexico ... it made me interested in perceptions/biases of European Spain vs. Latin American Spanish ... I started watching the 2nd season and it started out with a few ridiculous things happening, so I stopped watching it.

The PIDE were the secret police, just basically the Gestapo of the regime. Very adept at torture, just the worst scum.

The only reason the Carnation Revolution had a death toll at all was the director of the PIDE saw a crowd outside and just fired into it at random.

Very adept at torture, just the worst scum.

so this show's version is a fairly accurate portrayal

I’ve been kinda wiped out on the feel-bad organized crime shows, I stopped watching Gomorrah which is objectively well-done but the characters are such abhorrent ppl that I feel like I get the point. Got to that point w ZeroZeroZero too which looked amazing and had some great acting but it lost me by the end.

Mostly been sticking w/Engrenages, Stranger, and Entrapped.

I fucking loved Au Service de la France, but it's not on netflix anymore.

I think I am 4 seasons behind on Engranages ...