(no subject)
Aug. 31st, 2019 09:49 amA month or so ago ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
tenillypo and I watched the first two parts (twelve episodes) of Arthdal Chronicles, a Netflix kdrama -- the final six episodes are coming out later this year, I think, an unusual model for kdrama production in my experience but I guess a thing that's becoming more common with Netflix models -- and I don't know that it was good, per se, but I'm fascinated by it for a number of reasons.
It's helpful thatshati also watched the show and has recently read a lot of books about anthropology, so she was able to explain to me that, for example, when the leader of Our Heroine's utopian neolithic settlement explained its ban on Growing Things, Domesticating Things, and Climbing The Big Cliff Up To Visit The Evil Empire That Grows And Domesticates Things, the show was in fact wading enthusiastically into a long-running debate on Agriculture: Was It A Mistake? Arthdal Chronicles is ready to declare that yes, it was! I don't know whether they're presenting the world's most nuanced viewpoint here but I've never watched a television show that had such vehement anthropological opinions before and I'm very honestly charmed.
I'm also charmed by the fact that the costumers were clearly so enthused by the opportunity to design for a time period well outside of the Joseon era that they threw all sense of continuity to the winds and followed their hearts in every sense of the word.
( Some costume picspam, under the cut )
The plot, you ask? The plot! Song Joon-ki stars as a secret half-Neanderthal lad who grows up in an idyllic Neolithic village after the evil empire genocides the Neanderthals so as to take their land for more agriculture. Alas! soon the evil empire comes down the cliff to conquer more slaves to tend to their agriculture, and Song Joon-ki's whole village, including his best friend -- who is destined to be the next Great Mother of the clan and as such is supposed to have special magic powers -- are captured and brought to the big evil city where everyone soon gets wrapped up in labyrinthine Game of Throne-esque interclan politics involving control of religious iconography and bronze technology.
It was quite interesting for me as an American watching this; like, if I saw an American-made fantasy TV show that grounded itself so much in the imagery of a technologically superior but morally suspect society marching on an idyllic hunter-gatherer society to commit conquest and genocide, I'd feel pretty sure I was looking at a very specific metaphor. But this isn't an American show, so I kept having to pull myself back from jumping to what would, in other contexts, be for me obvious conclusions. And I'm sure that there are quite obvious conclusions to be drawn, I just don't have the correct cultural referents for them.
tenillypo and I watched the first two parts (twelve episodes) of Arthdal Chronicles, a Netflix kdrama -- the final six episodes are coming out later this year, I think, an unusual model for kdrama production in my experience but I guess a thing that's becoming more common with Netflix models -- and I don't know that it was good, per se, but I'm fascinated by it for a number of reasons.It's helpful that
shati also watched the show and has recently read a lot of books about anthropology, so she was able to explain to me that, for example, when the leader of Our Heroine's utopian neolithic settlement explained its ban on Growing Things, Domesticating Things, and Climbing The Big Cliff Up To Visit The Evil Empire That Grows And Domesticates Things, the show was in fact wading enthusiastically into a long-running debate on Agriculture: Was It A Mistake? Arthdal Chronicles is ready to declare that yes, it was! I don't know whether they're presenting the world's most nuanced viewpoint here but I've never watched a television show that had such vehement anthropological opinions before and I'm very honestly charmed. I'm also charmed by the fact that the costumers were clearly so enthused by the opportunity to design for a time period well outside of the Joseon era that they threw all sense of continuity to the winds and followed their hearts in every sense of the word.
( Some costume picspam, under the cut )
The plot, you ask? The plot! Song Joon-ki stars as a secret half-Neanderthal lad who grows up in an idyllic Neolithic village after the evil empire genocides the Neanderthals so as to take their land for more agriculture. Alas! soon the evil empire comes down the cliff to conquer more slaves to tend to their agriculture, and Song Joon-ki's whole village, including his best friend -- who is destined to be the next Great Mother of the clan and as such is supposed to have special magic powers -- are captured and brought to the big evil city where everyone soon gets wrapped up in labyrinthine Game of Throne-esque interclan politics involving control of religious iconography and bronze technology.
It was quite interesting for me as an American watching this; like, if I saw an American-made fantasy TV show that grounded itself so much in the imagery of a technologically superior but morally suspect society marching on an idyllic hunter-gatherer society to commit conquest and genocide, I'd feel pretty sure I was looking at a very specific metaphor. But this isn't an American show, so I kept having to pull myself back from jumping to what would, in other contexts, be for me obvious conclusions. And I'm sure that there are quite obvious conclusions to be drawn, I just don't have the correct cultural referents for them.
