It’s the 6th re-watch for me (yes, I do it once a year), so I thought I owe this series at least one article. Who cares if it was canceled in 2018, who cares if it is now considered “dated”, everybody can make reviews on new things, right?
I start with the usual round of justification, because yes, It’s been a while since last post but those who follow me know that I was busy writing my own movie and preparing for the trip to New York.
Now it’s all in the hands of that embassy clerk who’s considering my application for the NIE (National Interest Exception), probably not knowing that he has my destiny in hand.
Anyway, the movie is ready-ish, the flight is booked… Now it’s time to fool the wait with some bloggish rant.
I think I should start by saying that Sense8 is not for everyone, although it is a masterpiece of direction, photography, editing, writing and music (in short, everything), it may not be understood or appreciated by the general public.
Sense8 is for dreamers, empathetists, romantics, people with open hearts and minds. If you are among them either you have already seen it, or prepare to fall madly in love…
This does not mean, however, that the series lacks adrenaline, all the contrary! It offers fantastic action scenes, from shootings to martial arts fights, all choreographed with perfect harmony and almost without the help of stuntmen.
But let’s throw in some technical data: Sense8 is an American TV series, published by Netflix from 2015 to 2018, for a total of two seasons and two specials.
This science fiction series, is conceived and written by Lana and Lilly Wachowski, the same brilliant minds of Matrix, in collaboration with J. Michael Straczynski, less fortunate author (Thor, World War Z) but that still helped the sisters to move from big to small screen with great success.
The plot focuses on 8 individuals around the world, who discover themselves Sensate: evolved humans, capable of a powerful telepathic connection with the members of their Cluster (circle), which allows them to acquire the talents and feel the emotions of each others.
Each narrative arc gives the opportunity to deal with important issues ranging from cultural diversity, politics, religion and sex.
1. NOMI MARKS (San Francisco – USA)
Nomi is a trans girl, hacker and blogger activist, played beautifully by Jamie Clayton, actress and trans model. She lives in San Francisco with her sweetheart, Amanita, played by a wonderful Freema Agyeman, best known for her role as Martha Jones in Doctor Who, but who appears here in a totally new and sexy light. If you asked me what love is, surely the relationship between Noom and Neets would be one of the first examples that would come to my mind: the chemistry between actresses is fantastic and it’s breathtaking to see how they fight for each other, as lionesses, almost like superheroines.
It is worth noting that in the scenes set during the San Francisco Gay Pride, the crew actually shot during the parade, with the actresses integrated in the passage of Dykes on Bikes, with all the complications that filming during an event of this magnitude may entail.
2. LITO RODRIGUEZ (Mexico City – Mexico)
Lito is a Mexican soap-opera-action actor who lives in Mexico City, where he acts both in front of and behind the camera, forced to keep his private life a secret. Lito, a wet dream of all women, is actually gay and has an affair with Hernando, a charming university professor.
The close-minded line that Mexico maintains towards the LGBT community is highlighted, so as to evict a gay couple by appealing to moral clauses or to fire a person on the same basis, not to mention that the idea of an action hero to be homosexual is totally out of the question, according to the local canons.
Lito and Hernando then live their idyll only within the walls of their house: their relationship is wonderful, engine of great evolution for the character of Lito, and every time Hernando talks about art makes you fall in love…
His is in fact one of my favorite quotes: “Art is love made public“
And then what to say… They are two adonis, so much so that their scenes of intimacy can melt even the most composed observers! Their lives will be turned upside-down by the arrival of Dani, in addition to the fact that Lito speaks with 8 “imaginary friends” . 😅
The actors Miguel Ángel Silvestre (Lito), Spanish, Alfonso Herrera and Eréndira Ibarra (Hernando and Dani), Mexicans, are relatively unknown to the general public but have given an exciting acting test that has made them love by all the sensate wannabe of the world.
I would like to highlight, in this particular historical moment where everyone complains about everything, how both Jamie Clayton, trans actress who plays a trans girl, and Miguel Silvestre and Alfonso Herrera, straight actors who play homosexual characters, have all brought heartfelt and really wonderful interpretations to watch and live, all absolutely convincing and empathic.
The Wachowski sisters were able to make the production and casting as heterogeneous as possible, hiring people in all the places where they went to shoot (so, a lot!), people of all kinds, culture, religion, color, orientation and social background, wonderful people who have created a splendid product, new and fresh, also creating a family environment, a production in which to work must have been a fantastic experience…
So, to those who curl their noses on the casting of people who do not have in real life the same characteristics of the characters who interpret… Shut the fuck up and think of Barney Stinson! 🤣🤣🤣
3. SUN BAK (Seul – South Korea)
Doona Bae is definitely a fetish actress in the Wachowski universe: I had already loved her madly in that beautiful jewel that is Cloud Atlas and then saw her again in Jupiter Ascending.
In Sense8, she plays Sun: businesswoman and martial arts expert, struggling to be a woman in a world of men, especially thinking that the huge company where she works, belongs to her father and her asshole brother…
Her combat sequences are spectacular, I’d be lying if I didn’t say she’s one of my favorites… After all, “Smart Money Is on the Skinny Bitch“.
Very interesting will be the dynamics between her and Capheus, who nicknames her “Spirit of Jean-Claude (Vandamme)”.
4. CAPHEUS (Nairobi – Kenya)
Capheus is a Kenyan boy who lives in the poor suburbs of Nairobi, he earns his living as Matatu driver (Kenyan buses often themed painted) of the Van Damn, struggling to pay for anti-AIDS drugs for his mother Shiro, a brave woman forced to leave her native village for the union with Capheus’s father, as belonging to different ethnic groups (Luo and Kikuyo).
His story shows us with violence how lives the other half, the one we ignore, the one where expired medicines are sent by the big pharmaceutical companies to spend less, the one of the wars between the poor of which no one hears the screams.
Passionate fan of Jean-Claude Van Damme (hence the name of his Matatu), Capheus lives in the name of courage and what is right.
Talking about Capheus we cannot but talk about his re-cast, the only friction of which we have testimony on the set of Sense8. The English actor Aml Ameen left the production after the second season filming had already begun, due to artistic differences with Lana Wachowski, being replaced with the Nigerian Toby Onwumere. To this day it is not clear exactly what was the cause of the fight, rumors speak of “mental closure” from the actor regarding certain scenes in which his character should have participated. Transphobia voices have also been denied by the other members of the cast, but what is certain is that Toby Onwumere did an excellent job stepping in, giving the character a particular a depth and sensitivity.
I think that Capheus was one of the narrative arcs that most suffered from the sudden cancellation, leaving unsolved various issues that, although secondary, it would’ve been interesting to deepen.
5. KALA DANDEKAR (Mumbai – India)
Speaking of pharmaceutical companies, we move to Mumbai where we find Kala, a beautiful Indian girl with a pharmaceutical degree who is preparing for a not-so-much-corresponded-love marriage with Rajan, heir of the company in which she works.
The beautiful Tina Desai, is a former model and star of Bollywood and is mostly known for the two English comedies “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel“.
Her heart will be put to the test by her Sensate rebirth , as it will put her in front of difficult choices between the love for her family, the commitment made with Rajan, the Hindu religion to which she’s very devoted and the beautiful and damned Wolfgang.
6. WOLFGANG BOGNADOW (Berlino – Germania)
He’s our man of action! Spiteful heir of a powerful family of the Berliner Mob. He makes ends meet with his brotherly friend Felix, with whom he shares a hardware store, a passion for parties and a profitable career as a safecracker. Hard and pure, always naked, but with a heart of gold, he will find in his Cluster the family that, apart from Felix, he never had, and love in the arms of Kala.
But everything comes with a price, and he usually has to pay for it with an RPG.
The actor Max Riemelt, much loved in the German film scene, will be only one, along with the aforementioned Onwumere and Ibarra and Brian J. Smith, to return to work for Wachowski in the highly anticipated Matrix 4.
For adrenaline lovers, every scene with Wolfgang will surely be a huge satisfaction!
7. WILL GORSKI (Chicago – USA)
Brian J. Smith is our Agent Will Gorsky, Chicago PD, a knight without blemish with strong investigative skills. Is the first who manifests the Sensate symptoms at an early age .
Someone might even remember him from Gossip Girl.
He performs his job as a policeman trying to be better than the simple symbol of the uniform he wears, keeping up the name of his father, policeman before him, and being a valid support for his partner Diego. He acts a bit like the alpha of the group, always putting himself on the front line for the good of his cluster and especially to protect Riley, his cluster mate for which he will fall hopelessly in love.
8. RILEY “BLUE” GUNNARSDOTTIR (Londra – Regno Unito)
The cluster is completed by Riley: an Icelandic native, highly appreciated DJ based in London and, as a good young Londoner, a regular drug user. Riley is simply ethereal, with a dark past and a smile full of light… If the series had continued, rumor had it that she would have played a key role within the cluster.
Probably the most well-known face of the cast (exception made for Daryl Hannah and Naveen Andrews), Tuppence Middleton has worked assiduously on various film and television productions since 2008, The Imitation Game, Jupiter Ascending, Mank, Black Mirror and Downtown Abbey, to name a few.
Maybe she’s the character that adds less “useful talents” to the cauldron of the cluster, but her element is music and in Sense8 the soundtrack is a really important element: always dosed and chosen with care, ranging between the most disparate genres (we go from Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No 5 to Pantera’s Cowboys from Hell, via What’s Up of the 4 Non Blondes).
Summing up, Sense8 is a fantastic product, something never seen, especially on the small screen. Don’t just watch it, please, live it!
Also highly recommended is the Netflix special “Sense8: creating the world”, to actually realize the beautiful work that is behind it.
A question arises: Why the fuck was it cancelled?
Quite simply, the fans, not matter how passionate, were not enough to justify the super expensive production (an average of 9 million dollars per episode), since each scene is shot in real locations and never in studio.
For the insiders: so much heart for the editors and for the script supervisor: outstanding work!
The fans will never rest for this cancellation, and it is thanks to them, to all the hashtags and petitions, if we had a great ending (2 and a half hours of greatly enjoiable episode), thant counts our Naples between the locations.
And it’s easy to see what pushed them.
I myself, both at first sight and at every re-watch, have felt so many emotions thanks to this series: it has the power to not make you feel alone, to get passionate, to get turned on (the choral sex scenes are something beautiful), to make you want to fight, to open your mind and to dream of a better world.
The first time where two characters really come into contact, I felt all the power of that meeting, all the electricity of their fingers touching after so much dreaming of that moment…
Goose bumps every fucking time! It may be just a series, a product of fantasy, but it is able to give you emotions simply breathtaking!
I mean, who wouldn’t want to be a sensate? Have a “family” like that, with which to share emotions even miles away and live every situation with a much higher intensity than the average human being.
I already chose to live like this, for better or worse, in every aspects of my life: always with intensity, always putting 100% and investing everything I have… What to say? All I need is a cluster 😅
