3 Percent (3% Series): If You Miss Squid Game this Brazilian Dystopian Netflix Series is the One for You?
3 Percent (3% Series) is a particular story, despite its repetitiveness, despite its obvious defects. Born web series divided into three episodes, proposed to various television networks by its creator Pedro Aguilera, was purchased by Netflix four years after being published on YouTube and recently renewed for a second season. 3 Percent (3% Series) do not play for survival but want a dignified and happy life to be a merit, not a duty, not a pleasure, not an act of corruption or nepotism, nor a genetic one. The title of the series is also the purpose of the protagonists: only 3 Percent (3% Series) of those who, just after 20 years of age, will exceed “The Process”, will be able to abandon a life of poverty and live in a true oasis of peace, an island called “the other side”. An offshore company (in both directions of the word) that takes deserving through interviews and raw stress tests. For those who do not pass the process, there will be no exemplary punishments: you can go back to living — always if you can talk about life — in a world that nobody wants.
Netflix bets on 3 Percent (3% Series), shows a terrain explored by many can still tell something, especially from an unusual point of view; Brazil, in its first original production of the online streaming giant, takes its painful reality and transforms it into dystopia, into a what-if. What would happen if everyone, just everyone, at the same age, could have the same opportunity to change their life for the better? And is this question, the centerpiece of 3 Percent (3% Series)? We are used to seeing stories that have an unfair intent as their basis, a malicious premise: the Hunger Games is a fun show, a means of control in an unjust and unbalanced society, Ezequiel, the director of the trial, does not want to exploit the boys. The offshore rewards are not destroyed.
The Plot of 3 Percent (3% Series) and the Similarities with Squid Game
The series is set in a dystopian future with a social divide it is the master and only a lucky part of the population can live Offshore, literally a better technologically advanced, and flourishing world. To select 3 Percent (3% Series) of the population who will be able to live on the paradise island that is the Offshore candidates are subjected to the so-called Process, which is divided into a series of tests and tests to be passed. The process is the only way that people, who just turned 20, have to escape the desolation of the hinterland where 97% of the population lives, but the hope of a better life is preceded by a process full of pitfalls and difficulties.
This is the plot of 3 Percent (3% Series), which shares with Squid Game an interesting talk about inequalities that afflict society, rigidly divided between those to whom everything is granted and those who have nothing. In the Brazilian series the characters face a series of games of various types, even if here, unlike the Korean series, those who undergo the Process are not physically eliminated if the tests fail. Another feature that makes 3 Percent (3% Series) somewhat similar to Squid Game, in addition to the fact that in both series the games take place on an island, is the attention paid to the characters, whose characters are observed relational dynamics and morality, with the loyalty and the sensitivity of each tested. Here too the games and the tests have simple rules, but their development allows them to go to the bottom in the observation of the group, with the players holding their destiny and the chance for a better future. 3 Percent (3% Series) is available completely on Netflix, if it has intrigued you and you want to recover it find the trailer below.
In a post-apocalyptic world, from a social apocalypse whose prodromes we could see today, there are two places inhabited by man: the hinterland and the ’Offshore (on an island). Every year a “Process” dedicated to twenty-year-olds takes place, a selection of 3 Percent (3% Series) of the population, who deserves it, which can swell the ranks of ’Offshore, rich and technologically advanced, inhabited by the best. There can only be a clandestine group of saboteurs at stake who recognize the inequality of the Process and ask for the redistribution of wealth and resources, the Cause, but the Division (the Army) and the Church of the Process are unpopular, venerating the “Founding couple” of the utopian place. The protagonists are some twenty-year-old boys, followed step by step in the venture to reach Utopia. The second season follows the characters who have reached ’Offshore [Spoiler] – some of them, belonging to the Cause, want to destroy it. Michele, one of these, interpreted by Bianca Comparato, thanks to the possession of sensitive data, obtained in the enclosure of the spy story, blackmail l ’Offshore, obtaining food and technologies sufficient to create the Concha, a structure in the hinterland where everyone is welcome, which can be an alternative.
From here the third season [Spoiler] is set entirely in the structure, inside. In addition to Michele, other leaders emerge decisively, all from the process of the first season, all with their idea of the battle against Offshore: Marco, Joana, Rafael, Natàlia, and Elisa. Cons, not only the new trial leader, Marcela but also André, Michele’s brother. At the end of the season, Marcela, after trying to overturn Concha’s leadership with the controversial help of Marco and Gloria, is imprisoned. A new governing body is born, an exuviate intent on hitting the Offshore with an electromagnetic impulse. The particularity, so-called in passant, is that it is one of the few narratives in which utopia and dystopia coexist, almost by their etymology of mice (therefore places) and not of alternative worlds. So alongside, or separated by a sea, it can only be crossed by a submarine, more likely a gimmick to make the transition less uncovered, as if it were a spacecraft.
Docimology, Science Among the Sciences?
In every self-respecting creation, there is a need for an ethical horizon, common sense, and a dominant mythology. The dividing line between utopia (the Offshore) and dystopia (the Continent) is drawn by the Process, which is in all a public competition: the only one left and necessary for the survival of both worlds, as a window on a future better individual (in the same way as the Lottery, which not surprisingly in numerous science fiction stories plays the same role); as an improvement of perfection already apparently achieved. This fundamentality of the Process drives development, by those who manage it – therefore the state mentioned, the Offshore – of one docimology very advanced.
That is, the improvement of the science of evaluation, which is revealed at the end in its paradoxes: a methodologically conducted assessment cannot be separated from a meta-evaluation, i.e. an evaluation of the evaluation. Offshore, on the other hand, attributes almost divine meaning to the Leader of the process which has a total personalizing power, modeling the new “chosen” on itself and not on the needs of the society to which they will become part (and in reality, probably, it is a sort of removal, because utopia needs nothing). The last season, the 3 Percent (3% Series) film, closes the circle: the founding couple of Offshore [spoiler] had foreseen the aristocratic drift of the utopia created and had planned a final test aimed at the leaders of the competing factions, which however took into account an ideal of community, democracy, and sharing, all that is placed in the background in the official process. This would have allowed the prospects to overturn.
Tradition as a Burden!
At this point, the secular tradition-fardel (not eternal, whatever the church says) becomes the place and time of the redemption of the present. It was said of the “politician” within 3 Percent (3% Series): the final minutes of the closing episode is a long procession, one of the most genuinely enthusiastic scenes of all the seriality and contemporary cinematography (and I was sincerely impressed by the Netflix production, though low budget). How can we not think about how Brazil is now? Impossible. The courage to propose a political idea through a series, this merit, true merit.
Disability as a Strong Point!
One of the brightest elements of the series is the extraordinary ability to have been able to enhance diversity: Fernando, one of the protagonists, is invalid. We see him right away, with his poorly assembled wheelchair, but the series does not give anyone time to feel pain, compassion, or special sympathies for him. Fernando knows that the process is the same for everyone, without discounts or preferences, what we call disability is actually what exalts him, what he does of himself, himself, and no one else. During the series, we will see him bring his handicap as armor, despite the comments and contempt. The chair is a part of him, not something to be ashamed of, feel sorry for, nor something that can prevent him from participating in the most important event of his life, the possibility of escaping the decadent reality of the hinterland.
3 Percent (3% Series) is Ultimately a Nice Surprise!
A series that has its roots in an unexplored territory, which sweeps away some prejudices, and tells us stories from an unusual point of view for fans of the TV series. Brazil, a land of soap operas in the common imagination, proves to be able to tell a non-original version of a dystopian future, using its problems and culture to deliver an absolutely enjoyable product to the viewer, despite the defects.
