When the second chapter of The Last of Us I breathed with relief, not because of the vital vicissitudes of the characters but because the action was daytime and outdoors. Let me explain, after the pilot I visited video game forums to see what they thought of the adaptation and I found them in an uproar over a character that had gone unnoticed. At the end, and to the rhythm of Depeche Mode, something invisible to my eyes had happened. I went back, I still didn’t see him. Would the HBO Max series be recorded following the same guidelines as that mosquito that was broadcast on a frequency undetectable to those over 30? Are we facing the most tricky trick of ageism?
After pulling rewind six times and approaching the remote screen of the diamond appraiser I detected it, indeed, there it was.
It is not the first time that I miss more or less relevant details, nor am I the only one who suffers from it, the phenomenon of darkness in fiction reached a paroxysm in some chapters of Game of Thrones and stays in shape. It does not exclusively affect horror and fantasy, it is increasingly common to find offices, bars, police stations, and even hospitals ridiculously dark, it is not limited to series either, I dare not say that I have seen batman because I rather sensed it. There are times when the only thing that lights up the screen are the subtitles.
They have named this trend and it sounds like a Hammer classic: “intangible mud”. He coined it a few years ago Katie Stebbins on Twitter, the explanations are diverse and range from lens issues that are beyond my knowledge to the desire to provide a quality patina. It occurs to me that if that is the reason, rather than darken the screen they should make the script shine.
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