Watching Crime in French

I've been brushing up on my French, learning all the latest argot and idioms; poking my nose into coins (corners) as various as oyster farms and châteaux, the Louvre and tiny islands like the Ile de Yeu with its unspoiled natural beauty and the Ile de Ré with its salt marshes and seventeenth-century fortifications; and frowning over the befuddling complexity of the French criminal justice system till my head spins—all via some wonderful French TV series I've been watching via streaming services in French with English subtitles.

When I say "latest," I mean the language as it's developed since the Sixties, when I spent two years in French-speaking West Africa in the Peace Corps and a month in the idyllic village of St Paul de Vence before it was spoiled by plate glass windows in the shop fronts and hordes of tourists in the narrow cobbled streets that meander up and down steps and through arches within the medieval walls. And when I say "developed," yes, Virginia, the French language has grabbed the bit and bolted from its handlers, the rigid Académie Française. Twenty-first century French not only uses plenty of English, clean and dirty, but its own vulgarities have evolved. I'm sure they didn't say, ça chie for "it sucks" in the Sixties; in fact, "it sucks" as used today didn't come into popular usage till the Seventies or later. Then there's verlan, the slang of reversal (l'envers is "the reverse"), in which someone's girlfriend is a meuf instead of a femme (woman) or petite amie or copine (old terms for girlfriend), and if you do something crazy, it's ouf instead of fou.

My French has gotten quite rusty over the years. I haven't visited France since 2014, and I speak and write to my remaining French friends mostly in English. But after watching an hour or more of French TV every night, paying as little attention as possible to the subtitles, I've found my comprehension improving. There are plenty of French on the Upper West Side where I live and even more in Central Park, my neighborhood backyard. I've always caught scraps of conversation I could identify as French. Now I understand the words as they scoot by. I even occasionally find myself thinking in French, which I think is very cool. ("Cool" is tied with "okay" for the word most universally used in other languages.)

But you don't have to know French to understand the wonderful crime shows that are available on MHz Choice (through Amazon Prime), Acorn, and Netflix. Unlike the Korean dramas, in which some of the translations are risible, the French shows have excellent English subtitles. Here are three I recommend highly.

Murder in. . .

Eleven seasons of standalone 90-minute dramas, each in a different town or region of France. Some are well known, some remote. All are beautifully filmed. Viewers get to know as many of the top French actors by sight as we do British actors by watching season after season of Masterpiece on PBS. The shows are uniformly well written and well acted, the plotting complex. Within the framework of a police procedural, two often ill-matched partners must learn to work together as they conduct an investigation (une enquête). Because the criminal justice system is complicated, the teams vary. There's the local gendarmerie, which has a military structure. There's the police judiciaire, which is national, where a juge d'instruction, yes, a judge, may be sent from outside to investigate along with the police. There's the procureur, the prosecutor, who has authority over the investigation. Then there's the drama that comes with the crime and the setting. One of the team may be concealing local ties with the crime or a witness. A family reconciliation may be involved. These stories go deep, and there are plenty of twists before the solution to the crime and often—these are the French, after all—a kiss at the end.

The Art of Crime

Seven seasons so far. The setting is Paris, where Captain Verlay is a homicide detective whose short fuse has landed him in the OCBC, the division of the police judiciaire that investigates the illegal trafficking of cultural goods. Unfortunately, he is not only ignorant but phobic about art. His partner is Florence Chassagne, a brilliant art historian who works at the Louvre. She sees a psychoanalyst, talks to imaginary artists (whichever one's work is implicated in the crime du jour), and has a brilliantly conceived and acted narcissistic father who by turns clings, criticizes, and competes with her. Together, Verlay and Chassagne make a terrific team, especially when art theft turns to murder.

Candice Renoir
Ten seasons, plus an eleventh consisting of two 90 minute specials. I've written about Candice before. A lush divorcée with four kids, she uses being underestimated as an interrogation technique. However, if a member of her team tries to keep something from her, she says indignantly, "What do you think I am, an idiot?" Or as they say in French, Tu me prends pour une quiche? She wears pink rubber boots to crime scenes, flashes her police ID in a pink holder when she knocks on doors, and has her own methods of disarming suspects both literally and figuratively. She drives her superiors crazy, but she gets results.

From Candice Renoir and from the many, many women in positions of authority in Murder in. . ., I've also caught up on how feminist language has progressed in France. Candice's rank at the beginning is Commandant, one step above captain and head of her investigative team. The traditional form would have been le commandant, as in "Oui, mon Commandant," even when women started being advanced to that rank. But thanks to the women's movement, it's now Commandante Renoir. That "e"—and other changes, such as la dentiste, when I was taught long ago that it's le dentiste even when the dentist is a woman—makes a small but very significant difference in women's prestige and authority.

Xena Redux

 

So, now that I’m thoroughly hooked on Candice Renoir, the powers that be have made the show unavailable for streaming as of the Season 7 debut, which leaves us hung out to dry, at least in the English-speaking television world.  (The series runs another four seasons, and three dozen episodes, before cancellation late last year.)

Same song, different day.  How do you fill the gap when you’re invested, emotionally, in these relationships and outcomes, and all of a sudden you’re Jonesing?  You’d think I might be used to it, by now. 

I can recommend Brokenwood, but not unreservedly.  It’s got the Ozzie-slash-Kiwi thing down, which helps when you’re lonely for the Blake mysteries, but it’s also vaguely reminiscent of Death in Paradise, meaning it can favor the silly.  It reminds you that it’s all a fiction – and not simply made up, but a handshake between the creatives and the audience, when too much of a knowing wink into the camera will spoil the illusion.  I also find it aggravating that while the medical examiner, Gina, is attracted to the lead, Mike, her sexual appetites are played for laughs, and a sign of desperation.  I could do with a little less Our Miss Brooks.  In other words, Brokenwood seems stuck in the wrong era, with some lazy conventions.

Which brings us to My Life Is Murder.  Also an Ozzie show, but after the first season, set in Melbourne, it decamps to Auckland, showing its New Zealand roots.  Because, my dears, the star and exec producer of the show is none other than Lucy Lawless.  Yes, she’s done Battlestar Galactica, and she’s done Spartacus, but those are ensemble casts, and I want to see her in a lead, kicking ass and taking names.  (Yes, since of course you’re wondering, Renee O’Connor does a guest shot in Season 2.) 

Some of us were resistant to the charms of Xena – certainly they mangled Greek mythology – but some of us were equally impervious to Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  What fools these mortals be.  My Life Is Murder, I hasten to say, isn’t supernatural in the slightest.  It’s a straight-up detective show.  The scripts are inventive, and the resolutions convincing.  She, the heroine, is a former cop herself, and a cop’s widow.  She gets files, often cold cases, from a pal who’s still active-duty.  We know that in real life, no police agency in the world would countenance such a thing; any good defense attorney would take you off at the knees.  We can allow for dramatic license.  It works, in context.  Some of the other tropes are a bit labored, some of the forensic shortcuts challenge our suspension of disbelief, but whaddya want?  We’re trying to wrap this up in 45 minutes. 

It depends, naturally, on the actor and the character she plays.  Lucy Lawless carries the show, just as Cecile Bois carries Candice Renoir.  There’s more than a passing resemblance in the premise of the two series.  Lucy Lawless is 55, Cecile Bois is 51.  They’re playing strong women who’ve been buffeted by Fate – a cliché, but no less workable for that.  They’re attractive, and sexy, and don’t suffer fools (although you wish Candice would suffer fewer of them).  I think this is a welcome development.  There was Unforgotten, with Nicola Walker, now headlining Annika.  We’ve got Happy Valley, and Vera. 

Give it a shot.  I think it has a lot of charm, and humor.  It tends to skate on the surface, and not go deep into dark waters, but sometimes that does the trick.