Another Netflix review

A surprising benefit of Netflix has been watching foreign language series and seeing how good they can be - for example, the terrifically engaging Babylon Berlin;  Norwegians poking fun at their Viking heritage in Norsemen; Norwegian political drama in Occupied.   I've tried German Stranger Things-ish territory in Dark, but didn't find I liked it enough to stick with it;  I have heard people praise the Danish series The Rain too, and it's OK, but I am not that big a fan of the post apocalyptic quasi-zombie genre.  In  any event, these shows are often interesting in a cultural way - what they show us about how other people live.

Which brings me to a recommendation to try the Indian series Typewriter.

I would describe it as a curry flavoured combination of Goosebumps, an Enid Blyton "Four Go on an Adventure!" style book, and the recent Netflix updating of The Haunting of Hill House.* 

The show is set in the Goa area of India, and there is not a crowded street, wandering cow, or poor person to be seen.  The characters are middle class (at a minimum), and the school the kids go to is Catholic (given the Portuguese history of the place, that is not surprising.)   The thing is, it really looks nothing like what I thought a show set in any part of India should look like.   Maybe this is just my ignorance of Indian movie and TV shows - I doubt many are based around the lives of the struggling poor living in cramped conditions - but I still find the look of the show surprising.

And as for the use of language - I had no idea that Indian folk could move in and out of English so often that it can even be within the one sentence.    (Not just throw in some English nouns or exclamations, but starting a sentence in - I presume - Hindi and finishing it with a whole English phrase.)   I find that really intriguing.  I mean, the Norwegians in Occupied use English often too, at least when needing a common language with (say) a Russian.  But this complete mixing up of languages in Typewriter - it makes this poor monolingual Australia feel even more incompetent for his lack of ability to mind-shift into a different language than do the multi-lingual Europeans.  

The other peculiar thing is that the story and script seems to swing from very child friendly (and somewhat corny) to inappropriately adult at a rapid pace.  It will move from the kids getting up to mischief with a dog that understands instructions as improbably as did Rin Tin Tin (dating myself much, hey?), to adults swearing and making sex jokes as if they are in a different show.  

It is basically a haunted house story, with bits of black magic and people up-to-no-good thrown in.   In episode two, some of it even starting giving an Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom vibe:   not that this bothered me.   As long as it feels creepy at times (and large, quiet  houses  are pretty easy to make feel scary on film, even in daylight) I'm happy enough.   The acting is uneven, but as I say, so is the writing. 

Maybe the show will start to stretch the silliness too far and teeter into un-watchability, but so far, I'm enjoying it not because it's terrific, but for the way it's all so mixed up.     

 

*  My son thought calling it "curry flavoured" would be a bit racist - perhaps he meant stereotypical - but I know someone who recently travelled to India and said, at least going by the hotel food she got sick of, they really do have virtually every meal as a variation on a curry.