Sean C

Great cast, wonderfully rich plots, supported by superb research and credibility. Also, somehow the producers of this French drama have achieved a racially and gender diverse casting, WITHOUT the all too frequent clunky social justice and diversity messaging so frequently found in contemporary TV and films. BBC and Netflix take note!!

I worked in the DDR (East Germany) in the same period portrayed here ( c. 1983) and it appears to me the period detail and the depiction of the really very frightening cold war tensions at that time rings a lot of bells with me.. Decor, music, even the East German clothes and household goods are spot on.. Lively tale with a likeable cast and an interesting insight into the intrusion of the GDR state into family and personal life. Well worth watching.

I am not a member of the community portrayed in this mini series.On the positive side I must say the acting is impressive. However, on the negative side, "true story" or not, I could not help feeling emotionally manipulated by the screenwriters into the adoption of a standpoint that was inherently critical of the norms and mores of this highly traditional and closely knit community, from the inherent assumed superiority of a "woke" and often utterly fragmented and atomised declining western culture. This story could have easily been transposed in to a traditional Muslim Community. Somehow, I doubt that the sneering and unsympathetic treatment dispensed towards the Jewish Community would have been as pungent or acerbic as it was in this poorly written piece of woke agitprop, had the protagonists been fundamentalist Muslims.