While reading The City and the City I remember thinking how it would make an exquisite blockbuster. The CGI was needed not to hide the lack of story, which seems to be the standard for contemporary mainstream, but to enhance it.
Yet we got a TV show. At first I dismissed it, but didn't resist the urge to watch. Eventually I think this is a pretty good TV show.
Obviously, this production can't surpass a blockbuster, but the cohabitation of Beszel and Ul Coma was done in a best possible way with the budget given. As if Eastern Europe of the Cold War with its police state met with the contemporary business districts in the Middle East, tightly controlled by law enforcement and secret service. Sarcastically speaking, the only difference between the two was the appearance.
And what made this TV show even better than the literally template was the ending. In the book it slid towards not particularly convincing fantasy. Here it was done in the only possible way for the given setting, as an anticlimax.
Yet we got a TV show. At first I dismissed it, but didn't resist the urge to watch. Eventually I think this is a pretty good TV show.
Obviously, this production can't surpass a blockbuster, but the cohabitation of Beszel and Ul Coma was done in a best possible way with the budget given. As if Eastern Europe of the Cold War with its police state met with the contemporary business districts in the Middle East, tightly controlled by law enforcement and secret service. Sarcastically speaking, the only difference between the two was the appearance.
And what made this TV show even better than the literally template was the ending. In the book it slid towards not particularly convincing fantasy. Here it was done in the only possible way for the given setting, as an anticlimax.