Skip to main content

Review: Luna Nera - Witchcraft and Romance


Luna Nera


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, and an environment of romance clash with the brutal treatment of the women accused of witchcraft.

Ade (Antonia Fotaras), the protagonist, is a young woman discovering herself, scared and full of uncertainties. Yet, she bravely accepts her mission, fighting against her anguish and indecision. 

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 were 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 (Gloria Carovana). 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 (Giorgio Belli) is the boy who 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 cliché, 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 he would make. 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. The environment is credible, the beliefs and how important those beliefs are to the population, the horrible tortures, and the burning of 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 I think you could give it a try, is that it's not a show about simply the victimization of those women. They fight back! 

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Handmaid’s Tale – From Brilliant to Frustrating

  When The Handmaid’s Tale first aired, it felt sharp, terrifying, and painfully necessary. I wrote about the first season as a dark and brilliant adaptation, one that used restraint, symbolism, and dread to tell its story. Now that I've finished the third season, my opinion has shifted — not wholly, but noticeably. The show is still good . Sometimes very good. But it also became frustrating, uneven, and less powerful than it could have been. June Osborne: From Survivor to Exhaustion Let’s talk about June (Elisabeth Moss, Mad Men ). I understand the idea behind her arc. She was meant to evolve — to become more confident, more assertive, more dangerous. A woman shaped by trauma who stops surviving and starts fighting back. On paper, it makes sense. On screen, however, it often doesn’t work. June becomes reckless to the point of irresponsibility. She repeatedly puts others in danger without seeming to fully care about who might be caught in the crossfire. Her actions feel impuls...
Post a Comment
Read more

Gangsta Granny – Hilarious and Surprisingly Moving

  I have a ten-year-old daughter, and one thing we like to do is read the same books so we can talk about them afterward. Gangsta Granny was a birthday gift for her, and she read it so quickly that it immediately made me curious. When a child finishes a book that fast, you know something is working. When I finally read it myself, I was pleasantly surprised — and completely charmed. A Story That Is Funny and Moving At first glance, Gangsta Granny is a crazy, over-the-top, and very funny story. David Walliams clearly knows how to make children laugh, using absurd situations, exaggerated characters, and a fast-moving plot that keeps young readers hooked. But beneath the humour, the book is also sweet, touching, and emotionally rich. What starts as a wild adventure slowly reveals a story about family, loneliness, empathy, and learning to truly see the people around us. This balance reminded me of Roald Dahl’s books , where outrageous humour and emotional depth coexist effortles...
Post a Comment
Read more

Grief in the Shadows: Why 'The Silencing' Stands Out

  A moody thriller about grief, violence, and how far we go for the ones we love. Nikolaj Coster-Waldau ( Game of Thrones ) is Rayburn Swanson , a former hunter who now lives in isolation, running a wildlife sanctuary named after his missing daughter. Years after she vanished, Rayburn is just barely functioning—haunted, grieving, and clinging to the hope that she might still return. When a murdered girl turns up in the woods with eerie similarities to his daughter's disappearance, the local sheriff, Alice Gustafson ( Annabelle Wallis ), launches an investigation. Rayburn, meanwhile, accidentally crosses paths with a mysterious masked figure hunting a girl on his land. This encounter pulls him into the heart of the case in ways he never expected. The investigation twists, misleads, and slowly unravels, building toward a reveal that isn’t obvious—and intentionally so. Nothing is as straightforward as it seems. Themes of Grief and Family What makes The Silencing compelling is...
Post a Comment
Read more