I was wondering for a long time whether should I write about this series. In the age of instant streaming and abundance of critics, one opinion less would not change anything.
But then I realized - why not? What makes my voice less relevant than the others?
And then it came the answer: because to criticize something has been equaled to hating something. I try to be transparent - when I hate something, I just say I hate, and that's it. But hating requires some energy. Therefore, even though my internal and eternal anger flickers every day, not many things deserve the flame to burst.
However, "La Palma" woke up my inner hater.
When Netflix released the miniseries (4 episodes), I was incredibly hyped. What's not to like? A disaster series, volcano, geology, tsunami - everything that makes this little tiger happy. I do like disaster movies/series, spanning from "The Towering Inferno", through "Day After Tomorrow" to "Fukushima 50" or "Chernobyl". This is also one of the reasons why most of my Z Class movies revolve around some catastrophe: be it a meteor, an earthquake, or a sharknado.
Most of the reviews of "La Palma" were enthusiastic. I ascribe it to the affinity people have with "nordic noir", a specific sub-genre of crime novels/movies/series. Just stick the label "made in... (Sweden/Norway/Iceland/Denmark) to any production and it can be guaranteed a success. As I am not a crime fiction fan at all, I cannot judge whether the books or "moving pictures" are good or not. I watched "Polar" one day and was not impressed, moreover the prolonged and bizarre sex scene just put me off completely. It relied on Mads Mikkelsen performance, and since he's everyone's favorite Hannibal, people were all over it. So I guess the least a main character talks, the best "Nordic noir" it is.
"La Palma" wants to be a mix of everything - family drama, disaster series, psychological tv, PPL for Tenerife, inclusion model, but fails, as for me in everything. The story centers around a Norwegian family spending Christmas on La Palma, far from the snows of Oslo. Under the pretense of "loosely based on real events", the series brings the disaster to an absurd dimension.
The family consists of 4 people: Jennifer and Fredrik, parents, on the verge of separation, not understanding each other, and two kids: the eldest is the girl Sara and then her autistic brother Tobias. And as we learn through very "subtle" hints, Sara develops romantic feelings for a fellow Norwegian girl on vacation - Charlie, who dumps her boyfriend in a second. Their family also includes Jennifer's brother Jens, who works for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and naturally he surreptitiously warns his sister about an impending doom.
Outside of this family, the cast also shows us siblings: Marie and Erik Egdal. They are the survivors of the 2004 Tsunami in Indonesia. Marie works as a doctoral candidate in geology, and along with Haukur and Álvaro (chief geologist on La Palma), she studies the waterworks in the volcano.
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| Find the boat running from huge waves. |
During her trip to check the sensors, she and Haukur discover huge cracks that start forming on the volcano slopes. This and also other indicators point to the instability of the slope of the island, and a possibility of it slipping down to the ocean. This would cause a tsunami. Therefore, a race against time starts. Up to this point, I enjoyed the plot, even though making Marie a lead in the series was a mistake, as the actress carries no charisma or any believable air. But it's ok, I was in there for a volcano and its eruption.
So when it does erupt, it's only mysteriously visible from one part of the island, however chaos ensues and everyone tries to leave the island as fast as they can. People are trying to get on the boats, the repeat of Titanic mayhem ensues. Fredrik manages to get his wife and kids on the boat, but he fails short to join them. Resigned to his fate, ready to get killed in the chaos of earth tearing up, he gets scooped by Marie, whose brother has a boat, just waiting on a beach. Long story short, Erik gets killed in the scuffle that happened with some people also finding the cove. Marie and Fredrik manage to escape the people, but they have tsunami on their heels.
Meanwhile, Álvaro and Haukur decide that there will not be any boat waiting for them, open a nice bottle of wine, and come to the only conclusion they can - they will die on their own terms, in the only way a geologist should die, that is engulfed by a fiercely active lava.
This was such a stupid plot device, I just had to pour some bleach into my eyes and brain. A leading geologist, a lifelong expert on a volcano that is just rumbling back to life, decides to commit an auto-da-fé, instead of documenting the event for future references. And maybe becoming an expert on tsunami caused by a slipping slope of an exploding volcano.
Apparently, they never heard of airplanes, even small ones, to take them out of the island. Or, and this is the wild one, going on the other side of the volcano, that will not slip down.
They never heard of phones either, so in another bizarre plot branch, Jennifer with kids manage to get on a plane on Tenerife to take them safely to mainland Spain. However, Sara cannot see whether the love of her life is going to be boarding or not. Instead of just phoning, she declares she has to find Charlie and leaves her brother and Mom. Tobias, being only an ornament in the series, becomes almost a life-saver when he draws a map of Tenerife pointing to the place where everyone will be safe from the impending tsunami. This place was also mathematically decided on by some wave expert back in Oslo, so the news where to run were dispatched to everyone fleeing the tsunami.
And this place was calculated on the basis that two waves when they hit each other with opposing amplitude (where high point of the wave meets the low point) they will cancel each other.
So yes, tsunami will hit Tenerife from the west, but then circling the island around, two arms of the tsunami will meet, of course cancelling each other.
Lo and behold! - this is exactly what had happened. And tsunami was so nice, it let Marie and Fredrik run away from it on their pontoon boat.
I need to buy such a boat that can run faster than an oceanic wave made by tsunami. On an open waters, the wave can propagate with the speed around 800 km/h, slowing down to around 50 when hitting the shore.
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| Picture taken from HERE |
Back to Tenerife and planes. So Sara finds Charlie, and gives her the handband indicating being eligible to board the plane. Meanwhile, Jennifer (and Tobias), decides to look for Sara herself, because, apparently, a teenager is unable to send a message on her phone, saying that everything is fine. Of course, the plane with Sara and Charlie on board cannot take off, as you can see below, and is hit by a massive wave. Please notice how wonderfully even the crest is. I have no idea what this plane was made of, but it survived being hit, not much so the passengers. Out of everyone only 3 people survived: of course Sara, Charlie and some random flying attendant. Almost without a scratch.
Family happily reunites. The end. Curtains!
Maybe there are people who enjoyed the 4-part series, and I'm just crapping on their enjoyment. I know it's not a documentary, but ffs, even the most makjang drama out of all makjangs, is more sensible than serendipity in all events here. "Sharknado" had its own internal logic, and therefore was very enjoyable. I would even accept tsunami waves that look nothing like real tsunami waves, IF it was just somehow explained. It cannot be just "oh hey, let's make the most humongous wave in recent tv shows" because it would look good on the screen. Even in "Day After Tomorrow" that premiered somewhat 20 years ago and was a Hollywood blockbuster, the huge waves that hit NY were rather like an ocean making way inside the city (below).
The last screen shows my two last brain-cells looking for fun or sense during the 4-hour long disaster movie. Which turned out to be a disaster in form.
