A ‘Topaz’ treat, ‘Black Space’ goes dark
If you enjoyed Empire, the overthe-top show about a family dynasty in the US hip-hop music business, then you will enjoy Topaz (Ha Yoreshet), the new series about the Israeli Mizrahi music business, on Keshet. It is broadcast on Mondays at 10:15 p.m. on Channel 12 and all the episodes can be seen on the Keshet website, mako.co.il.
Although it has come in for criticism that it is exaggerated and stereotypical, these reviewers do not seem to realize that that is the point, that there is no way to make a quiet and tasteful drama about a genre of music where emotions are larger than life and which has a down-and-dirty side to it that is very much analogous to the hip-hop scene in America. A few decades ago, Mizrahi music was rarely recorded on vinyl and was mainly sold on cassettes at stalls near bus stations, but it has become a multi-million-shekel industry. When a music genre takes off like that, it is rife with opportunities for exploitation, which provides great drama.
At the heart of the series are three strong-willed, difficult women. Topaz (Nofar Salman) is a high-school girl who lives in a poor neighborhood with her grandmother and spends her days cleaning stairwells for cash and skipping school. All she cares about is singing. She has a huge gift for Mizrahi music and sneaks off to sing in clubs. Her grandmother, Zohara (Evelin Hagoel), was a legendary diva singing star who has fallen on hard times and does not want her granddaughter to have anything to do with the music business.
The third woman is Sapir (BatElle Mashian), the ambitious daughter of an imprisoned record executive (Itzik Cohen of Fauda). Her father wants to run his empire from his cell, but Sapir has her own ideas. Sapir discovers Topaz in a club and a couple of episodes later, Topaz is a huge star, with Maor (Israel Atias), Sapir’s half-brother, promoting her career and, of course, romancing her.
It may sound like a straight ragsto-riches story, but there is lots of intrigue, with a rival music dynasty headed by Shriki (Yaacov Cohen, who is probably the best actor in Israel right now when it comes to playing villains) swooping in to try to take control of Topaz’s career.
The more you are into Mizrahi music, the better you will like Topaz, naturally, but it is not necessary to know the real-life stories that inspired the plot to have fun with the series. It was created by Ori Sali and Omer Tobi and marks the first foray into Israeli television by Avi Nesher, one of Israel’s leading directors, who was script editor.
IF YOU’RE looking for a new Israeli fix on Netflix, you can try Black Space, a crime drama. There is a disclaimer at the beginning about graphic violence and it is the story of a high-school shooting in suburban Israel. Many of us will have a knee-jerk reaction, feeling that this kind of crime can’t happen here, but the series makes an excellent case that it could, given the often-lax security at schools, the teen alienation that exists here as it does everywhere, and parents who are unaware of what their kids are really up to.
It stars stand-up/actor Guri Alfi as Rami Davidi, a tough, angry cop investigating the crime. It uses every element from the toolbox used to create so many series: He was a student at the school years ago and it brings up trauma from his past; he has an unusual affliction (he lost an eye after being beaten and does not take care of the artificial eye and the eye socket); his relationship with his wife, who happens to be pregnant, is strained due to his single-minded focus on his work (I know that there is a high divorce rate among police officers, but has there ever been a cop on TV or in the movies who has a good relationship with his or her spouse?); a demanding, by-the-book commander who is fed up with his grandstanding; a young partner who seems naive but has more know-how than you realize at first; a school principal who seems to cooperate but is hiding something huge; and the general small-town-filled-with-secrets trope.
In spite of the fact that so much of this borders on cliché and a few of the plot turns are telegraphed so far in advance you will definitely see what’s coming, the series works, and I was eager to watch each new episode. The story of alienated teens who seem to have everything but are deeply unhappy is suspenseful and powerful. Perhaps, sadly, the greatest achievement of Black Space will be to convince you that it really can happen here.
If you just need to take a break from everything complicated, Hot 3 (and Hot VOD) is running episodes of one of the dumbest but somehow one of the most endearing shows of the past decade, Royal Pains, on Sunday-Thursday at 9:30 p.m. It tells the story of a young doctor (Mark Feuerstein) who is unjustly fired from a city hospital and ends up as a “concierge doctor” to the wealthy residents of a luxurious beachfront community. I really cannot defend my fondness for this show in any rational way except to say that Feuerstein and the entire cast (which, in later seasons, included Henry Winkler as the doctor’s father) are very winning and the beachfront locations are gorgeous.
More escapism is coming our way with several documentaries about movie stars, on Yes Docu on July 11. Her Name Was Grace Kelly, Steve McQueen: The Lost Movie (about McQueen’s passion-project film about drag racing that was never released) and Audrey (about Audrey Hepburn) all give candid looks at Hollywood legends.