“The Wire”: the best series of the 21st century, according to a survey | REVIEW

On October 18, the BBC published the results of a survey of more than two hundred critics and academics from 43 countries, to make a list of the best series of the 21st century. Number one was again “The Wire”(HBO, 2002-2008), an epic masterpiece by David Simon, who managed to shape an intricate, complex and unpredictable saga about drug trafficking and corruption in the city of Baltimore.

The BBC news offers a good opportunity to dedicate a few lines to what is undoubtedly one of the greatest achievements in the history of American cinema. “The Wire” transformed, from the TV series format, to the cinema. The only one that has done it in such depth, with a detailed dissection of a society, from five layers (and seasons): the streets, the port, politics, schools, and newspapers.

The title “The Wire” means “wire” or “cable”, and refers to the wiretapping system of the police, who must obtain audio records from drug traffickers. With stripped-down style, low-key photography, and the realism of many naturally lit exteriors, we tap into the days and nights of Detective McNulty (Dominic West), his colleagues, and their criminal contacts.

The feat of “The Wire” is manifold. The title wire, which allows us to capture the drug sales network, is a metaphor for another wiring, the one that will connect the most dissimilar figures. There is a spider web that connects the drug lords with the smugglers of the port, but also with the councilors and politicians themselves, with the schoolboys who are captured by the drug traffickers, and the journalists who are related to authorities and criminals.

Like an American reborn Rossellini, David Simon – whose knowledge of the streets he forged through his previous journalistic career – uses non-professional actors, real-life Baltimore figures, retired ex-criminals from mafias and hitmen, so he the series conveys a very unusual verism and rawness. To this are added actors who are not Hollywood stars, clean of all glamor.

There is also a careful look at the codes of each subculture, which overlap and secretly dialogue, as the viewer leaves one level and passes to another. Neither drug traffickers nor policemen are romanticized, not even teenagers from schools. And there are characters that go through every season, they come and go, from McNulty, the wayward cop, to Bubbles (André Royo) the homeless drug addict.

Nothing has a chance of escape in the big city. As a corrupt and self-sufficient system, for the authorities it is about keeping the violence statistics at their usual figures. Or play with the numbers for a moment, to win an election. Schools run out of budget, they are transitions for crime. The politicians negotiate with the police, not to investigate each other, and to come out well in the photo.

With “The Wire”, the cinema looks towards the serial format as the horizon of the realization of its greatest powers. The breath is epic, but from the slow and daily corruption of lives, its momentary powers, foolish or ridiculous heroics, mistakes and tragedies. Marginal populations end up confined, removed. Housing complexes are demolished to do new business. But “The Wire” remains as the almost biblical testimony of the people, of some cultures, a multicolored range of human types that make up the United States. “The Wire” is his violence and tenderness. Its sound and its fury.

Datasheet:

Original title: The Wire (Serie HBO, 5 temporadas)

Gender: Crime, drama.

Country and year: USA, 2021

Creator: David Simon

Actors: Dominic West, Idris Elba, Michael K. Williams, Amy Ryan.

Qualification: Five stars (5)