Mata Hari

I've been watching very good Russian series on TubiTV, but "Mata Hari" was so disappointing. I've just watched Episode 1, and it was enough. The series is badly written and the acting is so poor. It follows "by the book" all the politically correct clichés of today's productions, where every man is wicked and violent and she, as a woman, is always a victim of circumstances. Deep as a paper foil. Good for Netflix "modern audiences", but not for anyone who is looking for an interesting story about this controversial character. Mata Hari deserved much more.

I gave the series 3 stars only for the production design, nothing else. If you are looking for good Russian series, try "The Golden Horde", "Spies" and the light-hearted "Anna Detective".

How can a film have such amazing sets and wardrobe, but be so horrible? Are there voice overdub? Is the dialogue out of synch? Was script rewritten and the voiced over the original? Who chopped up the story line in places? I just don't understand how this train wreck was made.

This is definitely a soap opera version of the story of Mata Hari, complete with anachronisms, melodrama, and some strange dialogue.

The actors are from everywhere, and it appears the film was made in multiple languages.

While some of the actors, based on their lip movements, seem to be speaking English, some of them are clearly speaking different languages at different times, with no sense of rhyme or reason. Even within a single scene actors appear to be switching languages. From how it looks, there are times when the main character herself will be speaking some other language while other characters are speaking English, and times where her lips seem to be creating English-appearing shapes which match the dialogue, but she sounds as if all of her scenes are dubbed. In fact, many of the characters are clearly always being dubbed (probably for voice continuity, since they seem to be jumping from English to (Russian? Ukrainian?) randomly. The whole thing might have been redubbed, with those who always used English, like John Corbett, doing their own dub work (I know his voice well enough to know it was him speaking).

The other possibility is that half of the script was rewritten after the filming was done and they made the actors redo all of the dialogue while keeping the original film. Either way the result is a very strange audio/visual experience. If you watch, I'd try to avoid ever looking at the actors mouths. Too bad you can't also avoid listening to them, since a lot of the dialogue sounds like the bad acting of voice workers badly dubbing a Japanese fantasy movie, with more care paid to trying to fit the dialogue within the allotted space than bothering with things like emotion or story or even continuity.

It's also strange that regardless of what country we supposedly find ourselves, the majority of the characters have eastern european accents. Strong ones. Distractingly strong. Boris and Natashia from Bullwinkle strong.

Zero attempt was made at making characters appear appropriate for the time period. Gym-toned women dance around with perfectly shaved and moisturized bodies. Even the prostitutes and circus workers seem to be able to afford expensive day spas. Eyebrows are waxed and modern makeup adorns many faces. Clothing is made with modern fabrics (and people have far too many changes of clothing compared to what would have been normal for the time period and incomes) and everyone has perfectly cut hair in modern styles. Even the harsh orphan mistress had expensive highlights.

The whole thing is a bit bizarre, yet I found myself sort of mesmerized and binged the whole thing. I doubt I learned anything factual about the life of Mata Hari, as I'd originally hoped, but I can't say I wasn't in some strange way entertained.

The scenery and architecture are magnificent, and the costumes, while obviously modern construction, are beautiful. Some of the characters, while poorly acted, are never-the-less kind of compelling.The soapy story is interesting enough, even with the "moustache twirling," single level bad guys who seem to lack much personal motivation for their evils. I still wanted to know what was going to happen next.

It's one of those "home with a cold" or "up all night with insomnia" shows, where it becomes worth watching when you really have nothing else you could be doing. It's definitely not the worst series on Amazon Prime right now.

But boy, it isn't the best, either.

Edited to add:

Pretty sure it is a rewrite of scenes that caused the overdubs, because even American actors are frequently saying words that don't match their lips. They must have done a massive rewrite and figured it was easier to just have the actors reperform nearly ALL OF THEIR LINES. It's funny.

I almost finished the Mata Hari series, which I really liked, the costumes were great, and they were at the same time as music.

Definitely entertaining, but certainly not true to history. I understand taking "poetic" license, and embellishing a mix of fiction based on fact, but they really stretched for this one. This is the kind of production that spurs me into deeper research and finding the truth of the story. I found the use of the National Emblem March in episode 8's military parade to be amusing. I hardly think and French would use a march composed by the US Air Force for the United States in their parades. Somebody didn't do their homework, but then, who knows. Nonetheless, it is entertaining and the costumes are excellent.