Arte launches this Thursday evening on its antenna “Anna”, a post-apocalyptic mini-series created by Niccolò Ammaniti, which follows a young teenage girl having to survive in a world where all adults have died …
What is it about ?
In a post-apocalyptic present, a stubborn young girl sets out to find her kidnapped little brother. Through charred fields, dark forests, ruins of shopping malls and abandoned towns, she will struggle day after day alongside a community of survivors on a desolate island where nature has reclaimed its rights. She will be guided in her quest by the instruction book left to her by her mother. But as the days go by, she will understand that it is now impossible to live according to the rules of the past: she has to build new ones.
Every Thursday at 8:55 p.m. on Arte from November 4. Episodes seen: 3/6
WELL WORTH A LOOK ?
What if all the adults die from a strange epidemic? What would happen to our civilization, our culture, our language? These are the questions Niccolò Ammaniti, creator of the acclaimed Il miracolo, attempted to answer in Anna.
This 6-part mini-series straight from Italy transports us to a post-apocalyptic present in which only children who have not yet reached puberty are still alive. After this fateful age, they die, like their parents before them, of Red Fever, or Rouge, a disease that only affects adults and results in coughing fits and red marks on the body.
It is in this world that the young Anna evolves, a 13 year old teenager who will cross a desolate Sicily in order to find her little brother, kidnapped by “the blues”, a group of children ready to do anything for their survival.
If the synopsis is reminiscent of the current pandemic, this pitch is even colder in the spine when we know that the novel from which Anna is adapted (written by Niccolò Ammaniti in person) was published in 2015, well before the word “Covid” is on everyone’s lips.
For the writing, its author, who studied biology, has documented extensively with his former colleagues in order to offer us a story as close as possible to what could happen if a global pandemic were to happen.
And there is no denying it, Niccolò Ammaniti has hit the nail on the head. The dialogues and the situations, especially in the representation of the beginnings of the epidemic, make one think of what took place at the beginning of the year 2020. But far from being anxious, Anna transports us to a deserted Sicily, where nature has reclaimed its rights, and in the process offers us a polished photograph that makes us want to travel.
Niccolò Ammaniti’s series is based on the acting talent of Giulia Dragotto, who plays her first role here. The young girl brilliantly carries on her shoulders both the complex character of Anna, who tries to maintain the legacy of her late mother while trying to live her own experiences, as well as the series in which she is the protagonist.
The only weakness of Anna lies in its opening episode which struggles to present us the stakes of the series… The second episode manages however to rectify the situation and to convince us that Anna, more than a simple story on yet another epidemic, is an ode to human complexity.
