An amazingly compact narrative packs a remarkable amount of emotion and philosophical musing into a sweeping narrative; this is television that delivers all the satisfactions of the old-fashioned novel.
With a title like "The Devil's Whore" we are prepared for a rip-roaring bodice-ripper...and while bodices are indeed ripped...nay, shredded!...there is oh so much more going on here. Love long-denied over decades of tumultuous civil war, labyrinthine tests of loyalty, vengeance played out over decades, and various other devices create a nonstop narrative drive; try coming to the end of one episode without wanting to watch the next one at once. But at the very heart of this story is an inquiry into the deepest questions of existence: who are we amid our fellow humans, what force or forces rule the universe, and what does freedom really mean? A restless intelligence moves through this story, suffusing it with heartbreaking insight.
Kudos to the whole cast, to a counter-intuitive musical track, and to the splendid visual sense that informs the whole production.
The only thing that stops me from giving 10 stars is a certain dissatisfaction with the ending. Granted, the filmmakers face an almost impossible task to create a moment of transcendence to match all that has come before. Maybe on a second viewing I will change my mind about that.
