Set amidst the backdrop of the Rif War, Tiempos de Guerra continues a strong showing by Spanish shows on Netflix. In 1921, a delegation of upper class women nurses led by Duchess Carmen Angoloti (Alicia Borrachero) went to Morocco to establish a Red Cross hospital. It was part PR move by the royal family; no one could say the monarchy did not care about soldiers when aristocrats were sent to tend to them.
Julia Ballester (Amaia Salamanca) had not had news about her brother Pedro (Marcel Borras) and her fiance Andres (Alex Gadea), both soldiers at the front. When she sneaked into the train carrying the nurses to the port, it was mostly so she could get information about their whereabouts; she had no nursing training. As soon as she arrived at the military compound in Melilla, she met the handsome, dedicated military doctor Captain Fidel Calderon (Alex Garcia). You know where this is going.
Tiempos de Guerra's strength was not in a surprising tale, it was in the execution of a love story you could see coming. The show did not shy away from exploring the sometimes deadly consequences of falling so deeply in love in a time of war. It chose to make the characters in conflict to be good, so that their pain was all the more torturous.
Each episode was movie-esque in scope, and asked some fairly serious questions. How much should a government risk to rescue heroic soldiers who held a post for longer than anyone expected them to, but who were later imprisoned by the enemy? If a doctor were asked to treat a rebel leader, ought the doctor hold on to primum non nocere, when a twist of the scalpel could cripple the rebellion? If some people in the military were enriching themselves during the war, should the corruption be investigated whilst the enemy advanced?
Tiempos de Guerra pleasantly did not drown in the weight of its own ambition. There was a lightness of touch that balanced the occasional foray into melodrama. Comic relief abound, for example, in the reunion of ex lovers Pilar (Veronica Sanchez) and Luis (Cristobal Suarez), and Guillermo's (Federico Perez Rey) pursuit of Veronica (Alicia Rubio). Ethnic and religious tensions were mostly explored via the love between Magdalena (Anna Moliner) and Larbi (Daniel Lundh).
At only 13 episodes, Tiempos de Guerra is a lovely weekend binge. In the era of Peak TV, it is a worthy addition to the war drama library.
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