Detective Anna

This is a television series available free through Amazon Prime. I haven't checked to see if it's on Netflix.

The story is a about a woman with ESP facilities as medium born to an upper-middle class family in a small town in Russia. She's a bit like Angela Lansbury in Murder She Wrote in that she sticks her nose in police investigations where her nose doesn't belong and the stories are not believable because she inserts herself into police work unrealistically, plus she is constantly conjuring ghosts and the hints that they give her help the police solve their cases while leaving open the possibility that following much convolutions that things just fell into place.

Anna is younger and more attractive than Lansbury. She's seen in breathtaking display of late 19th century garments of Russian design. The wardrobe department for this film had their workout. Whatever their sources for patterns and materials, it far exceeds what is available through cursory internet searches.

Her hats are particularly interesting. Her sable ushankas are much more fashionable than the customary type with ear flaps that tie up. Her other hats are similar to regular hats loaded with tackle box contents, and kits to tie fishing flies, with lace and ribbons and feathers and pleated bands over broad bands, Each hat is a little world to itself. A good deal of effort went into designing Anna's hats.

While her dresses appear all handmade. Some with bustles, lots of layers. The fashion on this show is one of the more interesting elements. The men wear pleated overcoats, their suits show a great deal of contrasting piping, silk upper collars and folded back arm cuffs, pleats in the back where modern coats have vents. Elements of furs and silk throughout. Most coats look like curtain material. Pants that don't fit.

Most of the men's hats are ridiculous. Most are a captain-style, a cloth band with a mushroom cap and a stiff brim, others look like a simple cloth band and cloth mushroom top. Most of the men's hats make their faces look ridiculous, a bit like Elmer Fudd, then when they remove their hat their faces leap out startlingly ordinary with either great hair or near baldness. In all cases the men look much better without their silly hat.

The staging is a bit overly simplified. The writing and signage too sparse. As if the whole town cannot read. Contrasted with Asian sets that have calligraphy slathered over every possible surface. There are no street signs. Very few business signs. Sparse street traffic. Workers are staged sweeping straw across the street with a besom. Horses but no horse poo. No horse troughs. The same horse carriages shown repeatedly as if the town has only two cabs but always one cab immediately available.  The town staging is a bit antiseptic. Surfaces are obviously fake.

The dramatic tension is between the psychic woman and the chief detective. They run hot and cold. The writing of their interpersonal dialogue has the woman seeing things between them entirely differently than the detective. It gets old.

The household always has abundant fruit. Always grapes pouring out of a bowl. Always apples and oranges. Always pastries everywhere. Always drinking out of fine crystal. Every bottle is interesting. Every decanter expensive. Every table covered with tablecloth. Even tables with scalloped edges have tablecloths that conform to the edges perfectly. Every nicknack expensive. Every chair an elaborate design. Almost every painting a bit stupid.

The stories are convoluted with extreme misdirection. The original author commingles his influences. We get traces of Sherlock Homes and Watson overlain with Miss Marple and The Sixth Sense.

The sound is in Russian with its own subtitles. When the characters speak English then they are dubbed louder in Russian. The subtitles are smaller than the Amazon subtitles. If you have Amazon subtitle turned on then they overlay the original subtitles that cannot be turned off. So you're stuck with the original smaller typeface. Best to go mute when the characters speak English because the soft English with the louder Russian and with the English subtitles are all too much at once.

Watching the show is a bit wearisome. Viewers are dedicated. Viewers must pay attention for all the misleading detail as the story develops. You cannot take your eyes off the screen or you'll miss the story. The ghost scenes are the best and those are all very brief.

Often the ghost doesn't say anything. They just point out something or give some slight hint, or the ghost is not concerned about bringing justice for their own murder. Sometimes they misdirect too. Most of these scenes are handled tremendously interestingly. The best bits are included in the introduction.

For example. Anna is holding a photograph similar to a class picture. Men standing in two rows. One of the men animates and steps aside and a bit forward to say something to Anna. It's a weirdly spooky scene that lasts only half a second. Short so that you cannot analyze it. But shown so many times that you do analyze it. How did they make this shot? The picture is displayed at a downward angle as if Anna is holding the photograph.

How are all the other men perfectly stable and the one man animated? It's clearly not all of them standing perfectly still. Nothing else moves. Fabric doesn't move. To make the shot, the actor is standing amid a large life-size cut out photograph of other actors. He is the only live actor in the shot. The extremely brief scene is fantastic.

Other ghosts just stand there and stare, while still other ghosts play mind games, another ghost nags and appears without being summoned, another ghost thinks he's asleep. Each ghost is its own unique character. The pattern of ghost behavior is never the same.

The era all this occurs is when men put their trust in science. The tension between scientific minded characters and spiritual characters is drawn out to detail. The people who put their trust in spiritualism so are open to being deceived while other characters, even spiritual deceivers, are adamant that nothing exists beyond science. So the spiritual deceivers do not believe Anna. While the scientific minded are closed to all reality that doesn't comport with demonstrable science.

It's a great show if you have the patience to sit there and read the whole thing and never drop your attention. It's not made easy with small typeface in white often against white background. I like the show, and recommend it, for its fashion and for it's great shots, but only if you are patient. Plus, some of the translation is cute. You'll see a good deal of neologism to force an English word for something in Russian that English does not accommodate. Sometimes it's funny.

I've read online the show is popular in Russia because it's one of the first series that shows Russian individuals taking care of themselves economically without any government involvement or support. The basic premise of succeeding on your own or failing on your own is blowing their minds. I don't know. Seems everything pre-revolution would show that.