yvonne-30271 Reviews

The Empress (2022– )

More of a science fictiion than historical drama

[1/10 · 14 October 2022]

This is not a historical drama that makes any effort at being authentic. Real characters that existed are used and some of their story has historical basis but in general it was a great disappointment. I read several books about the empress and her times. What was the greatest disappointment was the complete disregard for authentic dress and hairstyles. It seems that the production was aiming to attract an audience that they believed would not know the difference. My impression was that the costume designer went to a few thrift stores and picked up whatever evening gowns had full skirts and those were supposed to pass as "period dress". Same with hairstyles. The British series "Victoria" takes place in England about the same time as The Empress and there is simply no comparison in the quality of the production. None. I looked forward to this production because I lived for some time in Vienna but it was simply unwatchable. I forced myself to watch the third episode but after that, I simply could not continue. It is that bad.

Maximilian (2017– )

Makes history come alive in an entertaining way

[7/10 · 14 October 2020]

I came upon this series after having watched other similar series set in 15th century but in Italy and England. Those were: White Queen, White Princess, Spanish Princess, The Medici, The Borgia. This series fits extremely well into the "missing pieces of a puzzle" category. It focuses on the Duchy of Burgundy, which was important in the English War of the Roses and I had first had to look up where exactly it was. I always knew that the Austrian Hapsburgs were somehow related to the Spanish Hapsburgs but never really knew how that relationship came about. All of these shows made history INTERESTING, the historical personages come alive as we get to know them, understand them, and discover that dull history textbooks can become very entertaining drama. The quality of the various 15th-century set TV dramas are not equal. Most have interesting enough story lines. The history was rich on drama in the 15th century. But the cinematography, costumes, direction, performances - those differ quite widely. Maximilian is definitely not tops in the cinematography and visual beauty category, but seemed pretty historically accurate. Another reviewer here mentioned historical inaccuracy without doing much diligent checking him/herself. Wikipedia has an error when listing the troop strength of France and Burgundy, they switched the numbers around in one place, but in the write up they got it correctly. So it's not the movie that had it wrong, it's Wikipedia that has an error. I enjoyed this series and would recommend it especially since both Austria and Burgundy are usually pretty neglected in our British-dominated historical series.

Milada (2017)

Confusing plot, not well presented

[2/10 · 8 May 2018]

I watched this movie because my heritage is Czech and I wanted to learn more about Czech history during the early years of communism. I have family that lives on the street that had been renamed after 1990 to honor this woman, so I wanted to learn more about her. I did know how roughly what her fate was before I started watching the movie. I was greatly disappointed. First, I did not understand why everyone spoke with a thick accent. The people would have spoken Czech and they surely did not have thick accents in their native language. So the accents were inappropriate under the circumstances and annoying and distracting.The movie seemed to be pretty faithful to what I imagine was period imagery in then-Czechoslovakia. However, the soul of the film was missing. It showed what happened but never ever WHY. I had to go to Wikipedia to read about Milada Horakova to learn something about her, and not even that answered why she was arrested both by the Germans and then the communists, when she was a very left-wing person herself. The only thing I will remember is that this woman did not care about her husband or her child, she repeatedly placed them in danger and was selfish enough to dump her whole family on her younger sister. At least that's the impression I got from the movie. I had absolutely no idea what exactly Milada did or said to end up so persecuted. I also had no idea, based on watching the movie, why notable personages of the day would have cared about her fate and appealed on her behalf. So all in all, the movie was a huge disappointment - I really don't know any more about Milada Horakova after watching the movie than I did before.