"The Get Down" by Baz Luhrmann. Very bright series about the birth of hip-hop

"The Get Down" was started as "West Side Story" for African Americans with Latin Americans, as well as a response to competing "Vinyl" HBO and "Empire" Fox. The series begins in the summer of 1977 in the troubled Bronx. Heroes — the future of young black rappers and Puerto Rican diva. In the background - the political struggle in the fore - the story of first love and high expectations. Evil streets gnaw the strong and devour the weak, but the inhabitants are not discouraged and all the time they sing and dance.

Conducts the project Baz Luhrmann - directed by "The Great Gatsby", "Australia", "Moulin Rouge!" and "Romeo + Juliet". The director says that he had been carrying out the idea of "The Get Down" for ten years. Netflix and Sony boast that the show’s budget was an unheard of $120 million. In general, it seemed to advance that this musical was programmed to succeed - feel free to go and see.

The adventures of the heroes begin on the last day of school. The gloomy high school student Zeke fries eggs in a tiny kitchen and looks thoughtfully at the ruins of the Bronx. This New York borough, like Brooklyn, did not receive a gentrification vaccination on time. Zeke's parents, of course, are not: they died in criminal squabbles. Zeke is not like them: instead of hooligans, he writes poems about the beautiful Mylene. After 20 years, this guy will rock the stadiums - no wonder in flashforward (that is, scenes from the future), he is voiced by rapper Nas. In the meantime, in the romantic ballads of the youth, the voice of the streets is growing stronger and preaching notes are pecked. Maybe this Zeke is the one Ezekiel who, 17 years later, the devout Jules will quote in Pulp Fiction.

As for Mylene, she has her own scores with religion. Puerto Rican sings hard in the church choir and listens to the pious father in everything. However, all this is a flap behind which the fires of ambition are burning. In fact, the girl wants to become a new Donna Summer. In addition, so that one of the producers saw her demo tape, Mylene is ready to go very far - so the young poet Zeke is slowly going crazy.

According to the description of "The Get Down" - the best summer series in the world. However, the premiere showed that everything is not so obvious. Many foreign critics from the show are terrified. The Baz Luhrmann method for many years now has turned every scene into a Coca-Cola commercial, and many are simply tired of it.

The "The Get Down" style is really redundant. From the first seconds the spectators are surrounded by bright colors and thundering music. Charismatic actors pronounce the text as if they were not in front of the camera, but on the stage of a music hall. In addition, even the episodes, where the characters just chatting, were shot so pompously that Michael Bay would be ashamed - the director, whose visual style for the vulgar excesses received the mocking name Bayhem.

However, these claims stem from snobbery: it seems that the series is accused only of the fact that he is ready to love the whole world. The audience, on which "The Get Down" brings down all its passion and tenderness from the first seconds, on the contrary, is terribly pleased. The series is so similar to the summer open-air, that from the TV it is about to smell smoke from the barbecue and gunpowder of fireworks. In addition, the rhythm in it is such that after the hour and a half pilot it is impossible to understand what it was - the start of the series or the full-length blockbuster.

However, "The Get Down" is also stated as a chronicle of the formation of hip-hop from the East Coast. In addition, just with the historical reconstruction, the series really has problems. Real musicians compete in charts with fictional characters; Script writers are confused in chronology (for example, they praise Bruce Willis ten years earlier than they would have cost them, and, on the contrary, the mode of the 1960s is accompanied with a Jet lag). However, to notice these errors, you need to be either a New Yorker, or a person versed in the history of rap. Yes, and if “The Get Down” is neat in details, the fate of “Vinyl”, accused of tediousness, would be waiting for him.

The main historical inaccuracy here is in the natural for human memory desire to embellish the memories and soften the traumatic experience. “The Get Down” is not only the Bronx’s West Side Story, but also the American City of God — a story of growing up in extremely harsh circumstances. If you compare the scheme of New York with the map of Westeros from Game of Thrones, the Bronx will be somewhere behind the Wall. Therefore, while some teenagers here write poems and dream of fame, others, as a rule, get together in gangs - and start hunting for the first with a real weapon in their hands. In addition, above the Bronx model, money spellcasters make their passes with their hands - cynical politicians who need only votes from this district.

The focus of "The Get Down" is that in dark times it focuses on the brightest. Netflix also released a great series about the 1980s - "Stranger Things". In it, the Cold War was only a background for children's adventures. With "The Get Down" - the same story: corruption and crime here are the backdrop for the novel's upbringing. In addition, watching the "rainbow people" (as minority political activists called themselves at the time) from the ghettos is as interesting as the prosperous white kids from the American backwater.

This is a true musical about Romeo and Juliet, where both Mylene and Zeke, while dancing, are followed by a fantastic retinue. Mylene's girlfriends are frivolous, but beautiful. The Zeke Friends are real Knights of the Round Table. As Lancelot, the son of Will Smith, Jaden is attached to it. The last day of study, each of the children notes in their own way - but makes it so that the viewer wants to be in his place. Someone will go on the horror movie "Satan's Cheerleaders". Someone crazy enough not to miss the premiere of "Star Wars". Someone will cross the border of the street gang to admire the new graffiti by the mysterious artist Shaolin. However, in the evening, everyone will definitely get together, go to a nightclub - and in it, “The Get Down” will finally flourish.