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The Long Song
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The Long Song
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Episode 2I started to feel a little bit of sympathy for Mistress Caroline. Not a lot because she is so awful but she wants to be loved and have a family too. She just doesn't recognize July/Marguerite as a person who has feelings and emotions just the same as her own. July is playing with fire and this is not going to end well. She envies Miss Clara and I understand that; she's clever enough to figure out who to get what she wants but I think, in the end, white supremacy is going to trump everything else.
I really like the Afro-Caribbean work songs included in this production. It's a unique look at Black culture on sugar cane plantations in Jamaica. I wonder though, how realistic ARE these people? Do they feel free to say no and speak up because they're isolated and outnumber the whites?
The costumes are reflecting the changing times. Mistress Caroline's portrait dress is very much early Victorian! Her every day dresses are a bit less fashionable. That era is out of my wheelhouse.
One more episode to go.
Episode 3 was tough to watch. July gambled on bettering her life. It turned out as you would expect. The end is kind of heartbreaking and silly at the same time. This production was gorgeous to watch and I got a real feel for life on a sugar cane plantation in Jamaica in the 1830s and 40s.
However, I'm not sure this adaptation truly did justice to what the author was trying to say. I haven't read the book though.
Disturbing but also funny. July's opening conversation is a parody of the opening line of Pride and Prejudice. *sigh* It's not that kind of a story though as it's told from the POV of Miss July, an enslaved woman in Jamaica during the slave rebellion of Christmas Day 1831 and later.
The white mistress is a stereotype and I'd be surprised if the enslaved people said and did some of the things they do here, but apparently the rebellion is real. Of course there are disturbing elements. Some of the actors, particularly Mistress, struggle with acting out the cruelty and something in the dialogue is blanked out, presumably the n-word.
The costumes are impressive. I've never seen a Regency bib front dress unbuttoned in a period drama and one done correctly. Of course giving July the outdated fashion just signifies her status. There's a "quadroon" ladies' maid visiting on Christmas who prides herself on her light skin and stylish dress from her mistress (NOT a cast off) but if you know the fashions of the time, you know she is wearing a style that was popular in the late 1700s, also signifying her status. I thought these costuming choices were very well done. Mistress isn't all that fashionable herself although she tries to be.
This is a well done production, visually. It's lighter in tone than Twelve Years a Slave and the typical American slavery stories. I haven't read the book so I can't compare the TV show to the novel.