Fanático is a Netflix series is a raw story about one man’s attempt to become a successful trap musician, even though he hasn’t the faintest idea of how to do it. The show is funnily grim and surprisingly touching but worth watching, wrapped up in a 5-part series with a runtime of 20 minutes each.
– Fanático Review Doesn’t Contain Any Spoilers –
Fanático is a Saga Built Up Over Time With a Novel Approach
It’s not just the narrative that makes Fanatico so compelling, though; it’s also how it’s presented. The primary visual elements are darkness and light. Some of the show’s most terrifying moments take place in utter darkness — when the characters can barely see what’s coming for them, let alone the audience.
This is reinforced with a consistent audio design that features an unnerving lack of background noise; Fanático “hears” like you do when your brain starts to wonder if maybe you didn’t quite notice a monster until it was standing right next to you. It helps build tension to have nothing happening because you aren’t sure whether something is going to happen or not.
It’s a dive into the world of celebrities. A celebrity and their fans can be mutually destructive, yet everyone wants both. It’s the push and pulls of what makes someone famous, which Fanático looks at from two angles — those inside the game trying to claw their way up to notoriety and those caught on the periphery desperate for a taste of fame. It sounds like a bad idea in theory, but the execution couldn’t have been better.
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Here is a TV Series That Portrays a Less Than Perfect Protagonist As Fanático
That’s a hard feat to pull off since any attempt to showcase how people can be shallow and self-absorbed is likely to make you look like you’re a bitter, jealous cynic. But by creating an environment where only the worst of people can manage to climb the greasy pole — where women are catty, obsessed with their appearance, and in denial about their age; where men are arrogant. This is a slanted, fascistic look at the world of entertainment that barely contains any of the glamour and happiness usually implied by the industry. It’s also ridiculously good.
Fans of multi-layered political conspiracy thrillers will devour this story. If you’re tired of shows that make it hard to figure out who the good guys are and end up with a sociopath hero, this is not the show for you. This is a show about awful people doing awful things, where you’re right there rooting for them to get theirs; this is one of the most badly behaved ensembles I’ve seen on screen in quite some time.
Breakthrough TV dramas of recent years have taken all kinds of novel approaches, from the antihero dramas of Narcos and Breaking Bad to the unconventional family in shows like Atlanta, or the experimental storytelling of Twin Peaks. Fanático takes us in a different direction; instead of one big hit-you-in-the-gut entry wound, it’s a saga built up over time as its protagonists’ lives go to pieces.
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Fanático is a Spiralling Decline Of the Perverse Life of the Protagonist
This is a story entirely about deeply awful people doing ugly, deplorable things. It’s hard to root for anyone on the show for obvious reasons. It’s also hard not to get into what happens to them. At first, it’s impossible to stop watching this show because you want to know why everyone is acting so poorly — and in such ludicrous ways — and want to see how it all ends. But eventually, you find yourself staying with it just to see how far everyone has fallen from the starting point.
Fanático is a show about amorality, but it’s not a cynical work. If you’re looking for a screed about the depravity of humanity, look elsewhere — this is imperfect people trying to make their way through the world to whatever end they can dream up. What the show is really about, though, is how a culture that accepts the degradation of one segment of society soon gives itself license to degrade others — and then some.
The deliberate pacing lets you know how adept this crew is at creating a sense of dread from very little. It sets the stage early in episode one when the pop star’s appearances describe how empty it feels even though people are milling about and living their lives just fine. That feeling permeates throughout, and by the end, you want everyone to suffer for their sins.
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Stream It or Skip It?
Fanático is a Netflix series for the thrill seeker who enjoys a fast-paced story with unpredictable twists and turns. If you’re a fan of everything mentioned above, then this is a must-watch.
Fanático is streaming on Netflix.