The period costumes and a lot of things look great on this series. The problem's come from the rewriting of history for no good reason. Mata Hari's tale is not perfectly recorded anyplace because of the fact spy stories are difficult to record properly. Here though, the character's are distorted from anywhere near the facts about their lives that are known. It's called artistic lisense and while the artistic is here, the substance is spoiled.
I don't believe in spoiling plots so I would just tell someone to read the real history before watch the series. That way you have a much better idea how the real known and the story here do not coordinate. Vahina Giocante ... Mata Hari a great job by a Franch actress playing a woman who was actually Dutch. Aleksey Guskov ... George Ladou- excellent acting but most of the the character does is a work of fiction. Viktoriya Isakova Lidia Kireevskaya is once again excellently acted but the story line also lets them down.
You have a character who recovers from near death injuries going around and beating up 3 men. That's not too realistic but that is the best example I can think of for the shortcomings in this series. There is the ignorance of Mata Hari life facts too. This one seems to like sex, the real Mata Hari did not. This one has no children. The real one had 2, one of which died after World War 1, but very little about her in this story.
The political reality is dealt with in an interesting manner, but the white wash of why Mata Hari in real life was executed is a fictional story here. At least at the end she is executed which considering the rest of the artistic license taken here, it is great that it ends at 12 episodes. At least Mata Hari is not presented as someone you should cry for. That is the truth.
I don't believe in spoiling plots so I would just tell someone to read the real history before watch the series. That way you have a much better idea how the real known and the story here do not coordinate. Vahina Giocante ... Mata Hari a great job by a Franch actress playing a woman who was actually Dutch. Aleksey Guskov ... George Ladou- excellent acting but most of the the character does is a work of fiction. Viktoriya Isakova Lidia Kireevskaya is once again excellently acted but the story line also lets them down.
You have a character who recovers from near death injuries going around and beating up 3 men. That's not too realistic but that is the best example I can think of for the shortcomings in this series. There is the ignorance of Mata Hari life facts too. This one seems to like sex, the real Mata Hari did not. This one has no children. The real one had 2, one of which died after World War 1, but very little about her in this story.
The political reality is dealt with in an interesting manner, but the white wash of why Mata Hari in real life was executed is a fictional story here. At least at the end she is executed which considering the rest of the artistic license taken here, it is great that it ends at 12 episodes. At least Mata Hari is not presented as someone you should cry for. That is the truth.