Trailer available here

Based on the 2014 novel of the same name this four part Netflix adaptation focusses on a visually impaired French girl during World War Two. The novel itself got high praise including winning the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for fiction and became a bestseller with millions of copies sold so the Netflix adaptation of it must be good too right?

Generally speaking, yes. As a show itself it really seemed to be produced rather beautifully in terms of lighting, angles and set elements as it helped to put the audience into it and helped to highlight the seriousness of the topic. There is a part of the topic, included in the book, that naturally comes over to the adaptation too; It seems to aim to highlight that war is bad and that it brings in people that have no part or desire to deal with the consequences of political chaos.

There are a lot of other themes going on throughout and you could easily lose track of it all but they instead fall together seamlessly. We have the main focus being about radios and how they allow people to not only communicate but for others to feel connected to others either through listening to a book being read or by hearing somebody discussing similar views to them; There is also the other side of this where it can be used as a weapon and therefore it is a feared device too. The way this is all presented and as viewers we can see the shifts of power and desire to control seems to be an accurate reflection of the view of this media by people at the time; The fear of change ever present and a solid comparison to the characters having to battle through change and adaption too.

On top of that cultural shift to a new era there is another cultural element included of how people can fear culture being shared, pieces being saved for history and how things that express different opinions can be risky. This is shown by an ongoing plot of Marie-Laure LeBlanc’s father trying to preserve objects in a museum and then trying to smuggle them all to safety so they don’t get destroyed. In doing so though he puts them both, as well as others they care about, at risk because some of these items including a particular diamond are highly sought after. This element was probably the part that I enjoyed the most as preserving history and culture is a constant ongoing battle with some people wanting to be selfish and claim items for themselves rather than a national or global benefit whilst others just have no respect for preserving the past or storing things of the present for the future generations to look back on.

I don’t think that the book or the adaptation is perfect but this is something that occurs in almost any widely successful pieces based on historical events. There are a few elements that make me feel a bit uncomfortable with an over simplification of certain things and the desire to make everybody seem equally human and that goes against the human nature of making some people good and bad.

All The Light We Cannot See becomes a much better piece to me when I watch the adaptation and just think of it as a generic war rather than specifically World War Two as the presentation of humanity makes it feel like it verges a little on sympathetic to the wrong side of the war and that is just a little bit icky. Yes, of course, stories like that of German Orphan Werner Pfenning being forced into the military path do exist as a part of historical accuracy and perhaps contempt for people like that is misplaced but that doesn’t mean that a softness should be given to them; We shouldn’t tarnish everybody with the same brush but unfortunately in this situation, given it is about such a significant historical event, that will happen and again if that is the point the author and director are trying to get across then removing it from the real world would have been the better move.

It is certainly a good watch and the length of each episode and the series as a whole worked out really well; It was certainly a good decision to take this approach rather than trying to cram everything into an hour and a half long film. The adaptation clearly intrigued a lot of people as it caused the book to re-enter the bestsellers lists in 2023 and that isn’t misplaced intrigue I just feel that the ‘hype’ is quite worth it despite it being a visual and well crafted masterpiece.