Skip to main content

Review: Luna Nera - Witchcraft and Romance




Luna Nera (Black Moon) is a story about witch-hunting, this time, with real witches - stregas - in 17th century Italy.

Full of teenage characters, love seems to be one of the main ingredients of the plot. Love secrets, forbidden loves, an environment of romance clashes with the brutal treatment of the women accused of witchcraft.

Ade, the protagonist, is a young woman in the discovery of herself, scared and full of uncertainties. Yet, she bravely accepts her mission, fighting against her anguishes and indecisions. 

The Benandanti


The witches' main enemy is a group of masked men that hunts them with no mercy. Their looks are already terrifying, even before they do anything. But, at the end of the day: what's their motivation? What beliefs lead them to that cruelty?

Yes, that particular group of women they're hunting was of real witches. Yet, if you take a close look at the benandanti criteria… almost any single woman could fit them.

In this group, we have two interesting characters: the priest, who is full of mysteries. It seems that he is some sort of wizard or sorcerer; he has supernatural powers. At the end of the show, it looks like he was possessed by something… We don't have accurate answers about him. 

The second character is Cesaria. She is a curious woman, different from others. She dresses like a man and seems to be in the group to please her father (is he her father?). She looked interesting in many ways, and I would like to see the character grow in a possible next season.

All other benandanti were shallow characters. Who are they? Why are they there? What's their motivation? We need more than a dozen men in costumes to make the group credible. 

Pietro


Pietro is the boy that went to study abroad and now doesn't belong in the village. It could make an interesting character, but it didn't. He is just a cliche, and his indecision is annoying.

When he finds out that Ade prophesied his mother's death, we thought, "Okay, now he is going to make a decision. He is going to do something. Anything." It didn't matter which decision would be. We just want to see some action from him. But…

First, he wants to belong to the benandanti; then, he doesn't. He hates Ade; later, he wants to marry her. Sorry, it was supposed to be romantic, but I found it a little annoying.

Historical Reconstitution


That was definitely the high point of the show. I can't tell you if it is absolutely accurate in all details, but it was superb. All environment is credible, the beliefs and how important those beliefs are to the population, the horrible tortures, and the burning witches. 

It is engaging and takes us to another time.

Season Finale


Let's talk about that last episode. I found it a bit ridiculous until very close to the end. I mean, that flight… Really?

After we're provided with a "logical" explanation, it finally starts to make some sense in a bizarre way. Yet, you can't deny that the writers were quite creative.

I thought that Pietro's destiny was predictable. Ade's fate, however, was more surprising. It made me curious. What was that? Some kind of demon that travels from one human to another? Some sort of poison to the soul? I hope we get an explanation in a second season.

Too Romeo and Juliet


The traditional story about tragic love, condemned from the first minute, is not my thing. Too romantic for my taste, I had a good time watching it nonetheless.

The best part, and the reason why I think you could give it a try is the fact that it's not a show about simply victimization of those women. They fight back! 

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes

This is not the sort of show which I usually talk about on this blog. However, as a psychologist, I’m usually quite curious in regards to criminals and their minds; and one of these days I started watching this documentary on Netflix . Taking into consideration the kind of thing this is, I can’t say I ‘liked’ it. I mean what you see in there is nothing to like, but I was rather terrified, which is probably the usual response. Nonetheless, it was definitely a good documentary. The eyes of a killer Everything displayed in this story was terrible. The descriptions, Bundy’s posture, everything seemed like some sort of horror show, putting into perspective what we may consider to be lucky or unlucky in this life. Before I even start watching it, I read somewhere that this was the kind of thing you shouldn’t watch alone. Sounds accurate right now. At the time, and considering my, mostly academic, experience, I didn’t think that this could actually be so upsetting.
Post a Comment
Read more

The Mist (2017) - quick review

  A thick mist falls up a town, and something about it isn’t right - good premise. We would expect nothing less than good from a Stephen King’s book. Yet, as we all know, book adaptations can be quite disappointing.  It goes from good to terrible. I loved the plot and, in the beginning, I was very curious and interested - it was almost impossible to stop watching it. Yet, at some point, it started to get on my nerves, and not in the way that a good horror show should. As we got closer to the end of the season, many things stopped making sense. Some characters are simply… not believable. The explanations for whatever was happening were ridiculous and easily refutable. It all took away the feeling of “this could be real”. It killed my interest. Many changes were made to the original novel. Some of them were interesting and made the story better, yet others were… well, nonsense. Cast and production As I said before, the first episodes were good and made us want to keep watching, but I was
Post a Comment
Read more

Show Review: Emily in Paris

  It took me a long time to give Emily in Paris a shot because I thought it would be a silly, shallow comedy about some sort of influencer. Well, it is a silly, shallow comedy about some sort of influencer, but to be honest, I liked it.  Emily is a young talent in a marketing career and has the opportunity of her life: working in Paris for a year! And since her boyfriend is an idiot, she can try the full experience of being a single woman in the city of love.  Unfortunately, she is not as good at managing her personal life as she is at work. In fact, she is frankly terrible at making decisions outside work. Cultural Differences Everyone who has been in a foreign country knows that sometimes we get ourselves into awkward situations due to cultural differences. So watching someone else go through the same is quite funny. I must admit that seeing an American trying to speak French is hilarious. Of course, I’m not French (and French people who hear me trying to speak French could have a s
Post a Comment
Read more