The BBC’s new drama, The Honourable Woman, is based around events, historic and present day, occurring in Israel and Palestine.
We are assured that it is entirely neutral in its approach and does not take sides.
The Author, and producer/director, Hugo Blick, tells us he has been scrupulously careful in exploring the issues:
The lead character is an Israeli – do you think that might cause some to react to the drama suggesting it could be biased?
It is important that viewers and critics watch the entire series – as intended – before making judgements on the characters or story arc because great care has been taken to explore this complexity. It is also important to note that the character played by Lubna Azabal is a Palestinian and that the series title could equally reflect upon her.
The Guardian applauds his skill in negotiating the political minefield:
Does anyone perceive Blick taking sides? I thought he walked a difficult tightrope with real skill. Calling for equality of opportunity with the statement: “Terror thrives in poverty. It dies in wealth,” felt powerful without being contentious.
The first 15 minutes would disabuse you of any notion that this is not an anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian polemic….it is based upon the premise that Israel must be destroyed.
It starts with the brutal murder of the ‘Honourable Woman’s’ father, an apparently Zionist arms dealer, killed by a Palestinian with a pair of tongs…no doubt an ironic comment on the supposed ‘David and Goliath’ power relationship between the two combatants now so fashionable in BBC interpretations of events….otherwise known as ‘The News’.
Blick’s tale is a shallow, naive allegory of the Middle East…the father is the old Israel, or rather the Israel that it still is, ‘armed and dangerous’, whilst the daughter, Nessa Stein, that ‘Honourable Woman’, is the new Israel, or rather the ‘one state’ solution where the walls are taken down and there are no barriers any more between the Jews and the Palestinians and everyone lives happily everafter.
The father, as said, is killed off, just as Israel should be we are led to think… Blick admits the conflict is embodied within the characters…. ‘In The Honourable Woman the conflict is used as a creative device – a reflection of the internal conflict of the central character.’
Nessa tells us that strong walls were needed for Israel to thrive, and that’s what her father offered, strong walls for a fledgling nation….but those walls aren’t needed now.
She goes on….telling us that Israel’s GDP in the previous year exceeded $220bn…a fledgling nation no more….the Palestinians on the other hand had a GDP of only $4bn.
She tells us ‘What a difference a wall makes.’
Which wall would that be Mr Blick? Could he possibly be making a not so subtle allusion to the Israeli security barrier?
Nessa goes on to reveal that ‘I believe in Israel’ but there needs to be ‘fundamental change….the greatest threat to Israel is Palestinian poverty, terror thrives in poverty, it dies in wealth…..The strongest wall we can help Israel to maintain is one through which equality of opportunity can pass.’
I’m certain Blick has absolutely no intention of making any allusion whatsoever to the ‘infamous’ Israeli ‘wall’, that security barrier that defends it, its people, from Palestinian terror attacks….but which anti-Israeli activists like to characterise as a symbol of apartheid and economic oppression crushing the Palestinian people, unfairly restricting their lives and economy.
Blick is saying that that wall must come down, it must be breached, he is saying Israel must be destroyed as a nation.
And Blick is not above using Jewish stereotypes…the moaning wife of Nessa’s brother being an archetypal ‘Jewess’ whilst the Jewish businessman, Shlomo, wanting the contract for laying communications cables, is the Pub ‘humorists’ idea of a Jewish businessman…brash, rude, loud and obnoxious….add onto that a racist talking of that ‘Palestinian bastard’ and subliminally suggesting that Arabs are ‘fucking camel jockeys’….oye vay!
If Blick gives up writing drama he can get a job writing jokes for Al Murray’s ‘Pub Landlord’….not so very different to good old Shlomo.
It should also be noted that the BBC was happy to screen this programme despite it involving the kidnapping of a Palestinian child. No cultural sensitivities, no postponing of the broadcast, at a time when a Palestinian teenager has indeed been kidnapped and killed.
Why might that be? Could it be that later on we find out that the kidnap in the programme was at the instigation of some ‘evil’ Israelis and the BBC is quite happy to reinforce that impression in light of the arrest of some Israelis for the kidnap and murder of the Palestinian?
The Guardian certainly liked what it saw and applauded its ‘relevance’…check the link they provide:
‘This new eight-parter is among the most exciting TV events of the year (pace the World Cup). The opener didn’t disappoint, weaving not one but two whodunnits – the suicide/murder of Samir Meshal and kidnap of Kasim – around the most intractable political issue of the day (it could hardly feel more timely) and the life of the woman in the middle.’
But never mind the politics just how good was the programme as entertainment?
Other left leaning publications also love it, which might indicate something of the politics:
From the New Statesman:
The momentum, richness and complexity are maintained. The Honourable Woman will win every award going and when it ends in the final days of summer, its fans, who will be legion and messianic in its cause, will have to take up needlepoint or mah-jong. Nothing on telly is going to be this good for some time to come.
When the BBC do it right, they do it superbly, as with ‘The Honourable Woman’ – an engrossing political thriller AND family drama that looks like it could become the UK’s answer to ‘Homeland’.
Unfortunately their political persuasions get the better of their critical faculties…the programme is clunky, clumsy, simplistic and obvious. It is a student project that incorporates every device known to ‘media man’ to laboriously make its points.
A highly political and very old fashioned production…it’s like something dragged out of the 70’s lacking style, sophistication and real, believable excitement. Has Blick not seen anything by Tarantino, or even the BBC’s, still lefty but stylish, Sherlock?
The Huffington Post and others say ‘it could become the UK’s answer to ‘Homeland’. ‘
No, it couldn’t, have they not actually seen Homeland? The first series was brilliant, the second maintained the standard, the third was pretty dire. The BBC has gone straight for ‘dire’ with ‘The Honourable Woman’.
The acting was wooden and lifeless…when the Zionist arms dealing father was killed off in front of his children they just sat there staring….the Mail explains:
The victim’s daughter was an eight-year-old Nessa Stein. She sat frozen with her father’s blood spattered across her face, in a green velvet chair far too big for her.
That Alice-in-Wonderland image of stillness amid chaos is a trick borrowed from European cinema, light years removed from the all-action blur of Hollywood.
Blick borrowing from ‘European cinema’…that could explain why it is crap.
Maggie Gyllenhaal as Nessa Stein, a supposedly powerful business woman, is unbelievable, not unbelievably good, just unbelievable…with an incredibly annoying ‘breathy’ voice over.
Her brother might as well be replaced by a bag of sand, the nanny seems a few drinks short of a good time and the other supporting actors are highly mannered stereotypes…I do though like the MI6 fellow, Sir Hugh Hayden-Hoyle,….though how Rod Liddle got the time to play the part is beyond me….however, again likeable but still too stagey.
The supposedly dramatic and exciting finale where the the boy is kidnapped was laughable nonsense…..Nessa’s bodyguard appearing out of nowhere, completely unnoticed by the kidnappers despite the open nature of the area, managing to shoot a kidnapper with a pistol at long range in the dark…never mind the whole tortured invention of the kidnap itself…a ridiculously complex concoction once again more probably the result of a drunken brainstorming session by those students of film check-boxing all the required ingredients for a thriller resulting in a cliched and uninventive ‘spectacular’.
Still, that’s purely my view…others beg to differ:
Blick patiently and methodically lays out the building blocks of this drama like a grandmaster positioning his pieces.
The Honourable Woman is a marathon, not a sprint: a drama with more layers than Rachel Green’s traditional English trifle and Dante’s circles of Hell combined – and twice as darkly fascinating.
Though thinking of it…that could just be damning by faint praise….‘a grandmaster positioning his pieces’? Are we to be dragged through 7 epsiodes of mind-numbing pawn play only to be rewarded finally with a rising crescendo of eyepopping action and the tying up of all loose ends in an intellectually gratifying masterpiece that satisfies the most jaded of critics?
Alan adds drama reviewer to his extensive list of “expertise”. Unfortunately the phrase “jack of all trades, master of none” once again springs to mind.
Alan asserts (using selective references): The Guardian and “other left leaning publications also love it, which might indicate something of the politics”. Strangely Alan you do not reference that bastion of the “left” – The Telegraph:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/tv-and-radio-reviews/10944638/The-Honourable-Woman-BBC-Two-review-beautiful.html
“The Honourable Woman is an enigmatic thriller, filmed beautifully and complemented by a mesmerising Maggie Gyllenhall, says Benjamin Secher” (4 stars).
Alan asserts that the acting is wooden and lifeless and in support quotes from the Daily Mail : “That Alice-in-Wonderland image of stillness amid chaos is a trick borrowed from European cinema, light years removed from the all-action blur of Hollywood.”
It does not take much searching to find that Alan is up to his old “selective quote out of context technique”. The full section from the Mail’s 3 star review is:
“Today’s espionage serials, such as David Hare’s trilogy starring Bill Nighy, don’t trust modern audiences to get the gist without laborious exposition.
Gyllenhaal stood up and made more speeches during this opening episode than an MP in a marginal seat in election week.
“It was clumsy, but at least it wasn’t boring: Blick is a master of the visual hint, a subliminal TV technique that ratchets up the tension. From the moment a waiter stabbed his silver tongs into a bread basket in the opening scene, it seemed certain that someone was about to be murdered — though the explosive gore of the killing, when it happened, was enough to put anyone off bread rolls permanently.
The victim’s daughter was an eight-year-old Nessa Stein. She sat frozen with her father’s blood spattered across her face, in a green velvet chair far too big for her.
That Alice-in-Wonderland image of stillness amid chaos is a trick borrowed from European cinema, light years removed from the all-action blur of Hollywood.”
The Mail then clarifies the reference to Hollywood:
“Gyllenhaal, of course, is a U.S. cinema star, and this is her first foray into television.”
A review of a review citing a review (the DM temporarily not being the devil’s spawn in print form, and loving the Telegraph still being deemed the voice of all things conservative).
This could be a long runner.
Well worth your contribution and selected quotes in turn. Shame you’ve been steering clear of other threads less based on subjective personal opinion. The word jack in certain combinations does raise its head.
#grabspopcorn
I am sure that somewhere in your post there is a point. Perhaps you could make it more clearly.
Thanks.
Sorry, but backwards compatibility to match your comprehension levels is no longer possible.
As you seem happy on this thread alone currently, debating pinhead angels, enjoy.
More gibberish but nothing from you and the others which actually refutes the arguments I originally made.
I guess that is tacit agreement that Alan’s comment was crap and nothing at all to do with perceived bias.
Thanks.
“If Blick gives up writing drama he can get a job writing jokes for Al Murray’s ‘Pub Landlord’…”
Probably not. Al Murray is 1) a very clever comic, and 2) a man knowledgeable about history.
As the Pub Landlord would put it: “What do you do for a living squire? BBC polemic drama writer? Timewaster! Get a real job.”
I have watched the first 2 episodes. Formulaic, plastic acting, full of stereotyping, non-credible plot twists. And dwelling too much on screen violence.
I fail to see how anyone can describe it as “quality TV”. But then the Telegraph has been sacking many of its established journalists.