Anton van Dijken: “fans will recognise it: you are touched by something you read, see or hear and think: that is something for me! If you are lucky, everything falls into place in the first episode and you become fascinated by the different characters and after the end of the first season you think: I want more! That comes in the second season and gradually you get the feeling that you are watching a kind of rerun; the development of the characters is still interesting but somehow you wonder: where is the twist….? And then season three came… the twist came at exactly the right time!
For those who do not know: the series tells the story of a British family who, after a personal tragedy (the loss of the youngest child to the Spanish flu of 1918), move to Italy and start a hotel there for wealthy guests. The village of Portofino is located on the Italian Riviera, near the city of Genoa. The series has some extra interesting storylines because there are also major religious and cultural differences visible wich have a huge influence on the lives of the main characters.
While in the first two seasons we mainly get to know the family, the staff and their hotel guests and the series occasionally evokes a holiday feeling, in season 3 the focus is mainly on the downside of that feeling. The mutual relationships are strained and the peaceful Portofino increasingly becomes the scene of the rising fascism in Mussolini’s Italy. It infiltrates in families and influences the daily life. It ultimately leads the viewer to an unprecedented dramatic climax that makes you long for a fourth season… That fourth season is not (yet) in the making. Rumors are circulating on the internet, but for the time being there is no Yes or No from the production, at most a Maybe and that’s all we got…..
You can safely call me a fan of “Hotel Portofino” and I have started a closed Facebook group in which news, background information and of course spoilers can be shared. You can find that group here!”