Zen Webpage

[numbat]

Aurelio has his own webpage on the BBC1 site:

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00x9x43

Has some links to interviews etc (that we've already seen) and to iPlayer for the episodes.

We don't rate a mention under discussions though - seems like we aren't talking about Zen enough!!!

[GreenEyesToo]

Now why didn't we think to put that up before? We've visited the links often enough!

Thanks, Numbat!

[rueful]

Thanks, Numbat. Brilliant idea!

One of the discussion boards they list thedabbler.co.uk/2011/01/transcendent-zen/ starts off with a fantastic review:

Last Sunday night’s Aurelio Zen mystery (three episodes on BBC1, Sunday 8pm), Vendetta, was remarkably coherent for the genre. The plots of TV thrillers rarely stack up, even in the ninety-minute-plus format spacious enough to accommodate a comprehensive effort. Even the first and most successful of this particular sub-genre, Morse - despite its excellent acting, setting, dialogue and production values - rarely had a plot that wasn’t at least a little wobbly.

Wallander, the most recent of these efforts prior to Sunday’s Zen, shared Morse‘s qualities but also its often defective plotting. Otherwise Wallander and Zen are very much the same sort of thing: a BBC co-production with European TV companies, destined to play periodically for a decade or two in the policier slot in schedules across Europe and presumably elsewhere. Both use leading actors who can really act, a supporting cast populated by actors of similar quality, and a well-worked script which is beautifully shot on what looks like a rather lavish budget.

Where Wallander seemed to be filtered through colours evocative of its Skåne location (the blues found in its big summer sky and on the edges of a long, LED-lit winter; the yellows of its cornfields, dunes and wooden interiors, both colours strangely echoed in the Swedish flag), Zen uses a palette provided by Caffé Nero (from latte creams to espresso browns). I’m not an aficionado but Zen also surely contains a few nods in the direction of Italian neorealismo cinema of the ’50s and ’60s (not least the retro credits – a treat for typeface connoisseurs).

But similarities aside, Zen achieves, ahem, a higher form of enlightenment. Sunday night’s plot certainly lived up to Buchan’s description of this sort of genre work: ‘where the incidents defy the probabilities, and march just inside the borders of the possible’. The difference from most of its counterparts was that, despite its defiance of probabilities, its plot was internally coherent: it made perfect and effortless sense on its own terms. Personally, I find that absent this there can be no suspension of disbelief – everything unravels if the plot doesn’t fit together. My enjoyment of many a Morse and Wallander has been spoiled because I’ve been given an unwelcome reminder that I’m watching a piece of mere TV artifice rather than a world I can get imaginatively lost in.

Sunday’s plot was not just coherent, it was subtle and satisfying: it felt unforced despite the dénouements of plot and sub-plot dovetailing very nicely at the end. But TV producers can take only so much of the credit for this (or blame when it doesn’t work out). Michael Dibdin, the author of the original Zen thrillers, was a master plotter.

He was also a genuinely good writer, his style putting him in a different league from most authors of thrillers. This may explain why his name isn’t as well-known as some lesser writers: originality of expression and plots that make you think don’t always recommend themselves to consumers of genre fiction. As CS Lewis observed (recently quoted here):

The hackneyed cliché for every appearance or emotion…is for [the unliterary reader, i.e. the vast majority] the best because it is immediately recognizable. ‘My blood ran cold’ is a hieroglyph of fear. Any attempt, such as a great writer might make, to render this fear concrete in its full particularity, is doubly a chokepear to the unliterary reader. For it offers him what he doesn’t want, and offers it only on the condition of his giving to the words a kind and degree of attention which he does not intend to give. It is like trying to sell him something he has no use for at a price he does not wish to pay.
Without wishing to claim literary greatness for Dibdin he does tend to give his ‘words a kind and degree of attention’. Admittedly, the Zen series of novels had something of a dip in quality about half-way through, but, rather like Rankin’s, these are thrillers that achieve a quality that can transcend the genre.

What’s more, in their sinister portrait of modern Italy they have a revelatory quality that bears comparison with non-fiction exposés such as Tobias Jones’s Dark Heart of Italy. In fact, one potential failing of the TV series may be – at least on the evidence of the first episode – its portrayal of Zen as rather more heroic than he is in the books: Dibdin’s Italy is short of unalloyed heroism. The gorgeous Rufus Sewell playing him certainly helps at least half the audience warm to the character (periodic sighs and near-swoons from the other end of the sofa were testament to this). His love interest wasn’t bad either: played by an Italian actress, with all that implies (both pictured, top).

Dibdin died three years ago at the age of sixty. He was a real loss. At least his most memorable character is living on, and in some glory.



I like this review because so many ones I've seen have complained about the story--"too slow" or "too difficult"--which is a sad commentary on the audience I guess. Although I disagree that there were no questionable plot points. We've already discussed a couple in the spoiler thread.

SPOILER: Click to show

the weak explanation of Lucia could count as a questionable plot point to people who haven't read the books, and I still want to know if we're supposed to think Mama went out the window!

But I think the plot and story were much, much, much better than the complainers are saying it was.

This part cracked me up:

The gorgeous Rufus Sewell playing him certainly helps at least half the audience warm to the character (periodic sighs and near-swoons from the other end of the sofa were testament to this).

[GreenEyesToo]

Ooh, sounds like Mrs Reviewer's another potential fangirl on the way! Thanks, Rueful.

[rueful]

I hope so. We need some cheerleaders to counteract the naysayers!

[stama]

Jan 8, 2011 14:06:49 GMT GreenEyesToo said:

Ooh, sounds like Mrs Reviewer's another potential fangirl on the way! Thanks, Rueful.

Oh yes!!! Thank you Rueful!!!

[vmaciv]

Hey Gals I just read some of the sour pusses on this web site do perhaps they could benefit from some of your input.

[anyother]

I think it's about time the BBC posts the trailer for episode 3.

[nell]

Hey great idea having the link here. There's a clip of Ratking up too now. Hehe it's where the apple munching little boy feet pics originated from ! ;D

[vmaciv]

Once in awhile I go to the Webapge just to read the blogs and of course Drool. But the last two blogs are downright positive. I also rrd on IMDB where the show's producer believes Rufs is perfectly cast. Perhaps this is a perfect storm. I certainly hope so