MY BRILLIANT FRIEND (HBO VERSION)

Despite its flaws, I got totally hooked on HBO's first two seasons of MY BRILLIANT FRIEND and binged it over the past few days. Operatically melodramatic at times, with overcooked florid narration (I assume directly from the books it's based on) at least in the English subtitles, that despite my only knowing a couple of handfuls of Italian words I could still see where the translation missed, and with characters that sometimes are as frustrating as real people, nonetheless it is a compelling and engaging story of two girls born at the end of WWII in a poor neighborhood outside Naples, Italy.

I was born at the beginning of WWII so I was able to identify with the stylistic and social changes and influences in a lot of cases, and having grown up and lived in proximity to Italian immigrant culture I found a lot of the behavior familiar. Though the story (so far) reveals that one of the girls calls her more educated friend her "brilliant friend," it's clear from the get go that the friend with little formal education is the uniquely brilliant one, if also stubbornly self-righteous in her belief in her own self-taught knowledge filtered through her experience.

The series is shot, directed, acted, and edited beautifully, symphonically even. Can't wait for the third season.