When was the last time you watched something that was not made in Hollywood - a movie or a TV series that wasn’t or felt American? I have nothing against American movies since it’s pretty much all I’ve watched over the past decades. In Europe at least there’s been a lot of talk of making broadcasters carry some 25% European programs (well, I don’t know exactly, something like that..) Yet, this doesn’t happen, not in my country anyway, because people are used to American drama…
I wonder how much good shows or movies I must have missed simply because no one bothers buying some obscure French or Italian series…
This post is exactly about this - a Spanish series I’ve just discovered and I feel I must share it with you… Actually, I was thinking about writing this post last night, but than we decided it’s early enough to watch another episode, the third of the evening…
“La casa de papel”, known in English as “Money Heist” and, yes, it’s available on Netflix… The series premiered in 2017 and it was on my radar, but I wasn’t too sure - a series about a robbery at the Royal Spanish Mint… doesn’t sound too special, after all I’ve seen plenty of movies with bank robberies, who hasn’t? Well, it’s not your usual fast-paced action movie with lots of shooting, good guys versus bad guys. It’s much much more than that - very strong characters, on both sides, all the characters have their own stories, lots of psychological tension and no typical American cops anywhere in sight. I don’t know if it’s just me, but in an American movie you can pretty much guess what’s going to happen, you know the drill, so I guess the one of the strongest points of the series is that the characters have a different mindset.
I’m sorry I cannot go into details, as this is not meant to be a review, but an advice - go watch it!
Something else that is very refreshing - the faces, they’re all fresh to me - not the guy that was in that movie or the woman that played the wife in that other series, new actors and pretty damn good, too!
To give you an example of what I mean - the moment I downloaded the first season I wanted to check if the format works and one of the first scenes is a girl phoning her mother - not an American mother, the typical middle-aged middle-class lady in really ordinary home, a different universe from the get-go! I’m in!
Another plus - you can binge-watch! One of my favorite things in the world and I do hope that’s the future of TV, a whole series released at once so you can enjoy without having to bloody wait for the next episode… Maybe when I was a kid and we didn’t have much entertainment it was OK, but nowadays with so many shows clamoring for your attention and so much online time the waiting just ruins the pleasure - so many things happen over one week it’s just not the same, you wait to see what’s happening, but part of the emotion is gone.
Case in point - we watched the ending of season one last night and it was mind-blowing… all the raw emotions in that song in the final scene (you’ll understand when you watch!) Fortunately, we did not have to wait for one bloody year to see what happens… season 2 was there, too tempting to resist… the downside, well, season 3 is scheduled for 2019, which sucks!
If you’re looking for something to take your mind off all the pressure that comes with the Christmas season - from buying presents to organizing family dinners - let yourself sucked into this story and I can guarantee you won’t give a damn about anything else until you’ve seen it all.
At the moment, I’m involved in a guessing game with 
I know we’re all adults here, with real problems in the real world - but do yourselves a favor and take a break in an imaginary world…
If, by any chance, you've seen it already, NO SPOILERS, PLEASE!
