I knew someone who didn't follow Game of Thrones because a series in which almost anyone can screw it up made him feel bad. He preferred to see the good ones, although he recognized that the bad ones are usually more interesting. In Game of Thrones, as in so many series in recent years, being good doesn't help. It's not even a virtue. However, it may be, it could be, that by now we are already a bit saturated with antiheroes, charismatic villains and unsympathetic protagonists. Where are the heroes? Where the classic epic? And the goodness?
Television is the territory of complex, contradictory and polyhedral characters. The good ones that are not so good or the bad ones that deserve prominence. At this point in the film (sorry, in the series) you have to be careful about proposing an intrinsically good or good hero or heroine. Because accusations of infantilism are just around the corner. Mine, the first.
However, I find it hard to throw them at Tony Phelan and Joan Rater, responsible for A Little Light. Protecting Anne Frank, this series, available in Spain on Disney, chooses to tell the story of a good woman: Miep Gies, the (real) woman who helped Otto Frank and his family hide in an Amsterdam attic during the occupation Nazi. Without her, the Franks might not have survived. The story that came out was Ana's, but Miep's story deserves to be told.
Miep Gies is not a one-dimensional woman. She's not a saint either. Throughout A Little Light, her moments of weakness, her cowardice and, why not, a certain meanness of hers are shown. But above all her bravery and her kindness are shown. Miep is, above all, human. This last adjective, so overused at times, is in the context of Nazism synonymous with... anti-Nazi. That the bad guys in history (sorry: History) are what they are is something that A Little Light does not question at any time. And very well that she does. In times of atrocities thrown into the public space protected by freedom of expression (hello, Kanye West), perhaps what is really subversive is telling a story where the villains are unquestionable and the victims are nothing else. And point.
The story of Anne Frank has the power that it has because its folds are minimal. A Little Light is told through a woman (brilliantly played by Bel Powley, seen on The Morning Show) who isn't ashamed of being The Good One. The series doesn't either. Miep's relationship with Otto Frank (Liev Schreiber), who will go from hiring her as her employee to having her and her family's lives depend on her, is precious. I would appreciate some more nuance, probably, but Tony Phelan and Joan Rater, seasoned in series like Grey's Anatomy or Madam Secretary, know that in some stories you have to be careful with the grays, because sometimes the good guys are the good guys and the bad guys are The bad guys, and the bad guys are the Nazis. And point.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
