Netflix unveiled the full trailer for “All the Light We Cannot See,” its limited series adaptation of Anthony Doerr’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, on Tuesday, offering a closer look at the prestige drama.
“Stranger Things” and “Shadow and Bone” executive producer Shawn Levy directed all four episodes of Steven Knight’s teleplay, which follows the stories of Marie-Laure LeBlanc (Aria Mia Loberti) and Werner (Louis Hoffman) as they intersect during World War II in German-occupied France. Marie-Laure rebels against the Nazis with her nightly broadcasts, while she roams the streets with her walking stick — she is blind — by day. Werner was trained to pick up radio frequencies at the institution where he was inducted into the German armed forces. His affinity for tracing airwaves and soundwaves sets him on a collision course to discover Marie-Laure’s clandestine broadcasts.
“Before I begin my broadcast today I have something to say,” Loberti’s LeBlanc asserts at the beginning of the clip before her voice goes fuzzy over the airwaves. “In this time of darkness, of invading cities, I’m trying to remember … darkness lasts not even for one second when you turn on the light.”
Hoffman’s Werner, who listens to her broadcasts, joins in when she talks about light banishing darkness.
“I know that broadcasting could get me executed,” LeBlanc says as bombs drop onto her home, shattering windows and throwing her to the floor. “But I will not be silenced.”
LeBlanc rises, rights herself and her equipment, and signs of determinedly, encouraging listeners to tune in next time.
From Shawn Levy’s 21 Laps Entertainment, “All the Light We Cannot See” traces the LeBlancs’ flight from Paris with a legendary diamond to keep it from falling into the hands of the Nazis. A cruel Gestapo officer pursues them to attain the stone for his own selfish means. According to the official logline, “Marie-Laure and Daniel find refuge in St. Malo, where they take up residence with a reclusive uncle who transmits secret radio broadcasts as part of the resistance. Yet here in this once-idyllic seaside city, Marie-Laure’s path also collides inexorably with the unlikeliest of kindred spirits: Werner, a brilliant teenager enlisted by Hitler’s regime to track down illegal broadcasts, who instead shares a secret connection to Marie-Laure as well as her faith in humanity and the possibility of hope.”
“The things that I’ve seen haunt me,” Werner says, beginning to tell his story. “The voice was my escape.”
A montage of Werner braving a German military school and then various tasks throughout the war flashes to the fateful intersection of his life with Marie-Laure’s.
“All the people of the world have become evil at the same time,” Marie-Laure worries.
Her father Daniel LeBlanc (Mark Ruffalo) corrects her, saying, not all the people, as a shot of Werner tracking frequencies unfolds.Her uncle Etienne (Hugh Laurie) explains to Marie Laure that her broadcasting helps send messages to the advantage of the Allied Powers.
In addition to the aforementioned cast, Nell Sutton portrays the younger Marie-Laure, Lars Eidinger portrays Von Rumpel, and Marion Bailey plays Madame Manec.
Marie-Laure remains resolute, grounded in her purpose. Werner optimistically believes in his generation’s theory that talking reason might end the insanity of the war.
“The most important light,” Werner begins. “Is the light you cannot see,” Marie-Laure echoes.
Levy, Dan Levine and of 21 Laps Entertainment serve as executive producers alongside Knight with Josh Barry as co-executive producer. Joe Strechay steps in as associate producer and blindness and accessibility consultant after working on projects “See” and “The OA.”
