Sky Red, the series very recently landed on Netflix, has given some thought since its very first trailer. They will be the recalls to other products traveling on the same line as style, will be the high-sounding names that accompanied its promotion ("by the creators of La Casa di Carta"), it will be the general spirit and its flavor familiare, yet this new product has a very particular story to tell, and it does so without too many mints. 2020 has undoubtedly been a curious year for the home entertainment industry, seeing not just a few curious ones projects cinematographic, but also the continuation in the realization of works that they knew and know to entertain the masses, continuing to throw meat on the fire with a writing that is both harshly criticized and appreciated. This Sky Red that we bring you in review could be easily wedged in this kind of identification, placing itself as a work that in itself does not take itself too seriously, but that in its gait manages to elicit a few laughs and tears.
It is right there lightness the key to reading necessary to continue in the vision of this product that constantly shuffles its cards, carrying out the various developments without taking into account some important consequences, especially following the developments represented. Put simply it is an extremely series simple who knows where to hit to keep the attention alight, even if consistency remains something not to dwell on too much.
What is this Sky Rojo about?
The story of Sky Rojo, of which for the moment we have only the first season, tells of three girls (Coral, Wendy e Gina) who work in a brothel in Tenerife, this brothel is run by a ruthless man who moves his choices and moves in an unscrupulous context, ready to objectify the female body in the most detached and cold way possible, and without any moral dilemma. Everything changes, however, when the three manage to escape from the club, from their lives and roles, colliding with the various difficulties of the case and from an evil that will continue to chase them far and wide ...
Described in this way it would seem to be in front of an extremely serious TV series designed by strong dynamics, but this is not the case, or at least it is not fully speaking. Sky Rojo from its very first scenes presents itself to the viewer through a style that is immediately recognizable, especially if it is looked at The Paper House. The narrator herself, intradiegetic, narrates the events and narrates itself, presenting the situation through a modus operandi that does not degrade too much what is shown, thus sinking into a story not purely socialrather, tending to dampen everything with a swagger that will accompany all events step by step. The fact that the other protagonists also tell each other contributes, in its small way, to embellishing the little human that Sky Rojo has to offer, managing, at least in the writing of the various characters, to also touch sensitive chords, introducing themes close to the feminism and relying on common morality.
Two sides of a coin on which one does not know enough
One of the merits of Sky Rojo is also that of representing the situation of its protagonists without too many filters, without mincing words or too excessive limits. Everything also passes through the vicissitudes of the so-called bad, of those who have exercised their power over the lives of these girls, even in a subtle and perverse way, of those who continue to chase them in this crazy and amazing escape. Here yes forks also the writing of the series itself, with a curious attention to the comparisons of these other more shady and particularly indefinite characters, smoky in their pose and move even in the real world. At the top of the club where the girls work we find Romeo, a character who always oscillates between the darkest darkness and a certain type of eloquence capable of elevating him through some reasoning and visions to be taken into account. Below him we find Christian e Moses and all their personal and family problems. These three characters manage, in their position, to be also memorable on stage, thanks to a script that here manages to capture both their negative sides and those human.
The developments that will see these girls at the center, however, will be marked by one illogical madness e chaotic, who will never be long in shuffling everything, serving twists that do not take too much into account the situational logic, and continually pushing theaccelerator, even when it's not useful. All this is alternated by some particular and quite anti-climatic insights in their appearance (we are talking about some scenes that do not have too much narrative logic, some sequences designed by clear advertising intentions that, merged with everything else, ridicule in a grotesque as shown) and from moments that tend to to challenge continuously the spectator himself (also breaking the fourth wall), aiming at a discourse that explores the various problems linked to prostitution and everything that revolves around it.
The fact that the story of Sky Rojo revolves around three prostitutes remains one of the most curious choices, also because it gives the screenplay the possibility to open a series of issues that go beyond the story itself, highlighting some important social gaps and issues related to consumerism and money. The past of the protagonists, then, is the host, especially in their characterization, justifying and clarifying what their lives have been up to that moment. All this creates a sharp contrast between the present and the past, a contrast enhanced by both his own moral weight, a weight that goes beyond the screen itself in a curious way, both from the aesthetic choices used to construct it on a visual level.
Action, violence, sex, but also narrative madness
Central element of Sky Rojo remains theaction, enhanced by a context in which the camera follows these girls step by step, and does so with an attention that sometimes surprises for the softness, along with a photograph always exasperated in its main colors, bright, distracted, as if to continually overturn reality in front of the lens, to make it more lively, perhaps comic in some ways. Sky Rojo is also this, it is also and above all adrenalina and twists and turns, escape and violence, a clash of the sexes, social but also distant, despotic and curiously atypical until the last, until the last scene of the last episode now available.
A succession of moments that do not find too many reasons to happen but that do it anyway, bringing forward a set of characters who certainly have a great desire to to tell and tell each other, breaking any rule with the real world, yet harshly criticizing it for some of its things, visions and secret rules. It therefore remains to ask ourselves with which eye to look at everything, with which gaze to absorb the progress of a narration that seems to want only to entertain, and then to baste something else? In the absurdity of a moment, of a shot saturated to the maximum, distorted and yet curiously incisive, in his simple and continuous nosense, in pursuing something apparently distorted and imperfect, exaggerated, grotesque to the core. All these questions remain at the bottom of a glass with alcohol and ice, in the tinkling of those cubes that do not want to be perfect but only tasty and indefinite.
