The Palm it is the most followed news at the moment by users of the platform Netflix. This genre mini series disaster It is certainly surprising, but also dissimilar to more blatantly atmospheric titles Christmas. The great success of the show in Northern Europeparticularly in Norway however, it had been anticipated by the presence of a cast all star which brings together some of the best-known actors and actresses currently in their homeland: Ingrid Bolsø Berdal (among the stars of the series Westworld), Thea Sofie Loch Næss (Twilight of the Gods), Anders Baasmo Christiansen (Exit), just to name a few of all the excellent performers in these gripping four episodes, always in perfect balance between survival movie, family drama e choral fresco. Even the creative team, from the writers Harald Rosenløw Eeg e Lars Gudmestad (creators of an adventure interwoven with characters and interpersonal dynamics with in-depth psychology) to the director Kasper Barfoed (formerly the author of The Nurse e The Chestnut Man) were already very popular on the Northern European scene, and therefore the wait for the mini series was also accompanied by the expectation of seeing a show of the highest level in terms of special effects and audiovisual language. But it wasn’t just the extreme realism of the most explosive sequences to confirm expectations regarding The Palm and convince many spectators from our country to stay glued to the screen. In fact, the series also plays effectively with this question: it is one true story? All of this is inspired at least in part by events that actually happened?
The answer, as with other recent successes among Netflix original series, particularly in the disaster genre, is simply not yes or no. The scenario is the real one of the island ofCanary archipelago named The Palm (o San Miguel de La Palma). And of this little earthly paradise which is located eighty kilometers from Tenerife is also true Volcanoalso the protagonist of a scary story eruption right in 2021. From this real starting point, however, the show’s authors developed another idea, which was also present in the news of the time and in the fears of Spanish public opinion: the fear that the volcanic eruption would then trigger a tsunami of such proportions as to turn into a catastrophic event ready to evolve on global scale. And it is precisely in this tight series of extreme situations that the mini series engages a whole series of different reactions, solutions, even desperate ideas to try to survive that belong to the different characters; from a family of Norwegian tourists on holiday to the team of researchers who are on the island to analyze these phenomena. The message of the mini series (also clearly stated in several crucial passages), in addition to leading us to reflect on the themes of solidarity and abuse between human beings, is extremely clear: leading us all to reflect on the relationship between Man and Nature (and consequently on the evident advance and looming of the Climate Change on all our realities).
But among the many positive reactions from the public and critics, there was also some controversy, based precisely on the waste betweenreal inspiration and the extreme situations which are instead purely the fruit of the imagination and thecreative flair of the authors. Given the international success of the Netflix novelty, some members of the Spanish scientific community also wanted to present their notes on the plot and the plot of the The Palm. From their point of view, in fact, the narrative climax would be too extreme and would end up fueling and exasperating precisely those fears which in reality would not be based on a scientific evidence. For example, the expert volcanologist Rubén Lopéz had already expressed himself several times in 2021 explaining why there really was no risk that that volcanic eruption could then evolve into a mega tsunamiplacing the emphasis on the devastation, the dramatic difficulties of the population, and indeed harshly condemning anyone who seemed in his eyes to want to scare the nation with more catastrophic hypotheses than reality would predict.
And what do you think? Have you already seen the four episodes of the show on Netflix? Tell us your opinion, as always, in the comments.
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