This review may contain spoilers
This is great artwork.
It changed me, impacted me so much. There will never be another show as good and powerful as this one. The actors and actresses had strenth of character. They had to not care about ego public scritiny to be willing to play these roles because they were not "pretty" roles. They remind us what is going on innthe world and that the world needs kindness. It shows us the bonds of human love thru Ben, SaXin, Dr Pei,Jiang Li, and Shen Bai...Oh! how she changed...what do we value in this world and sometimes doing the right thing matters most, even if you are the only one doing it. It asks so many questions, like when does our duty to care like keeping others from hurting themselves outweigh self-determination and the human right to DIGNITY? I dont think the writers were going for that, but good art can bring up questions. When he finally stands in front of the circle of wooden plaques with dirt, where he planted olive seeds (i think thats what he did), he finally had his resolve, that silent moment of awarenes. On his right is that pile of dirt and the stone ..like an ancient Chinese grave to bury his past..? and from that point on we are just helpless to do anything and the final song plays, the words hits us so hard ??... maybe the writers, directors, storytellers want us to feel that helplessness and the moral injury...maybe that is what SongRan felt for so long. That conflict we feel, the story wants us to feel a little unsettled and moral injury. It asks that we resolve it for ourselves, come to terms with certain things. There are ethical delimnas. It shows how society misjudges and stigmatizes mental illness and how systems fails not only the one diagnosed, but also how the wife, girlfriend or maybe the one parent has to support that person alone. They are just as effected and isolated. But remember, there are also glimmers of hope when he did get better by his own version of "exposure therapy" when he was determined to heal, but no one supported that. He was silent. We want him to tell someone, we want him to let someone in. It also shows how peers, people that also suffer and recover can help other sufferers..he says "I am like you" when the guy had a melt down holding Dr Pei hostage. A person can only get the help if they want to get better and if there is are good systems and supports are available. The White Olive Tree is a mirage and our hope for justice in the world, is it realistic or a mirage? But the hope we do have is in ourselves through compassion, kindness, support and love..... I work with veteran soldiers with PTSD. Every once in a while, I believe God gives me a shot in the arm, a reminder, something that reignites passion , that heals me from burnout in my work. This time, it was the gift of this story.I did want to address some criticisms I read related to language and accents. I believe the production staff wanted a more realistic environment. Us Americans can feel central to many things sometimes : ) We want top notch English speakers, but this was a Chineses drama so the cast really needed to be fluent in Chinese. Then they cast people to represent an area of the world that was not America, so they are going to have accents. In real war-torn zones, relief workers and refugees , soldiers, survivors are going to be multinational. At the start, they kept asking "what nationality are you," in English to show this norm in communication.....They will speak a core language, which happens to be English. It will most likely be their second, third, fourth language. They did not cast or write in a single American character. The show's cast members were all multilingual, but needed to be fluent in Chinese most importantly, not English..lol....
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