TV review: Marseille, s 1 & 2, Netflix (2016-18)

Oh boy am I glad the French hated this wonderful show, it crackles with insight and relevance and their detesting it gives me more opportunity to say “Screw you” (see end of post). I was a bit troubled by Julia Taro’s (Stephane Caillard) mental illness but in hindsight I could see how this slightly excessive dramatic ruse was important to underscoring the horror of criminal violence. Rarely has such an important segment of TV been aired in recent years. PTSD is a horrific debility but Caillard does a good job with a good script (as well as some corny cinematography) to convey elements of that horror.

Gerard Depardieu is brilliant as Robert Taro, and I fart in the general direction of detractors who summon up the shades of his recent legal problems. I honestly sit in the camp of people who are only focused on the artistic when it comes to allocating wreaths for artistic merit. If it turns out that Depardieu is indeed guilty of what’s been accused, I’ll openly admit my detestation of that fact, but he’ll still be a good actor.

As usual with TV crime dramas there’s a good deal of parroting standard lines in ‘Marseilles’ but this is universal for the genre. It has to be noted that this show had such a big effect across the border that the Germans made a knock off in the form of ‘Dogs of Berlin’ (which is reviewed here). When I reviewed the German show in November last year I had no idea ‘Marseilles’ was a precursor as nobody else seemed to make a note of the fact, but the combination of police procedural, politics, the far right, and soccer (what the Europeans innocently call “football”) links the two shows at the belly like Siamese twins. They are two sides of the same soccer ball, and one can’t be ignored without damaging the reputation of the other, just as you can't play soccer with half a ball.

In other words, see them both and enjoy. The German show is more about the cops and the French show is more about the politicians, and perhaps that’s essential to the identities of the two close neighbours. In fact they border each other over long-contested ground, so perhaps the makers of the German show felt obliged, in order to continue to paper over old sores, to pay homage to the French. I’m glad they did because ‘Dogs of War’ is great, with the same attention to ethnic minorities in the drugs business that powers ‘Marseilles’ to its rather clumsier conclusion.

I was sad to learn before finishing ‘Marseilles’ that a third season won’t be made. And screw the French if they didn’t like Dan Franck’s creation. Vive le Dan!

Combines proliferating

Not content with staying up til dawn in the lead-up to Xmas I continued the trend and made dozens of works with similar qualities. I call these combines, one of the Pop artists used this word I can't remember which it was so long ago. I was a big fan of Pop art back in the day, but nowadays find inspiration in colours mostly. I still use culture references though.

'Proof II', 2024.

Having started to do works in this format naturally I studied the possibility of using poems as well. Well, having thought about it for a few hours I decided to take action.

'The election', 2024.

This poem was written on 16 February 2013; 12 November 2020; 15 and 23 September 2021. It referred to the 2013 poll but could apply to any election. I'm still interested in poppey things, 'Proof II' is based on a drama that aired in 2007 featuring a journalist. I was studying journalism at the time so naturally I took an interest. Making photos from the TV broadcast seemed natural but nothing at the time could have suggested to me that I'd use them 16 years later in an artwork. For 'The election' on the other hand I use photos from 2022 when Labor was elected (Liberal-National coalition won in 2013).

TV review: Blood Coast, Netflix (2023)

Another French police procedural, but this one’s more violent than ‘Black Spot’. It also lacks the supernatural element, and it’s from the south of the country, not the east. The makers of ‘Blood Coast’ have found a way to twist the standard plotline because Lyes Benamar (Tewfik Jallab) is helping a local drug lord (Samir Boitard) to run his cartel.

Alica Vidal (Jeanne Goursaud) comes in from Paris to find who killed her father and joins Lyes and his group of crazies as they try to close down a group of criminals led by Franck Murillo (Nicolas Duvauchelle) who’re muscling in on Ali’s territory.

The run-down streets of Marseilles add flavour as do the seaside locations, this show reminded me of the docuseries about the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, there’s something about Mediterranean places that reminds us of the high life, you know the Riviera etcetera, but in the hands of Kamel Guemra it seems like it’s always been lethal. Just the sort of place you would imagine a small girl being kidnapped in.

The ending of ‘Blood Coast’ is decisive but you can see how a good scriptwriter might resuscitate the franchise for a second season. If one eventuated I’d definitely watch it.

TV review: Black Spot, Netflix (2017-19)

I really loved this strange police procedural based in eastern France, it’s sort of like the German show ‘Dark’ in that it involves s forest and a mystery. The acting, casting, and direction are excellent and make for a bingeable product. I stayed up all night to finish this.

The show plays with ideas of Frenchness especially in the emphasis of pagan gods, the resistance of the Roman invasion, and even a love affair with Agatha Christie. I thought the music had affinities with ‘Father Brown’ in fact. I liked the secondary environmental theme and the badass grandfather (Olivier Bonjour) who alienates everyone.

Laurent Capelluto plays a sort of Mr Bean-like character, the public prosecutor, who brings a sort of zany earnestness to every scene he’s in and serves to counterbalance the rather severe chief of police (Suliane Brahim) who however does a good job of managing to be interesting and correct.

This is entertaining fluff with serious intent, worthwhile watching 2 seasons to get through. I hope they bring it back for a third season, I’d definitely watch.

TV review: Designated Survivor, Netflix (2016-19)

This show was so much fun, perfect for a news junkie like me because every second shot has people in the White House looking at newscasts on the TV. The number of TVs in the fictional White House is extraordinary, people seem to stop in the hallway all around the place catching the latest on one screen or another. Sometimes you get the extremely weird occurrence of you looking at the TV watching other people watching their TV. If that group of people were watching another group of people watching TV is would be a quoted quoted quote.

All highly meta.

The story behind this show is that the State of the Union address is bombed, half the Capitol Building is destroyed, and the entire government cabinet, as well as most of the Senate and House of Representatives, Chief of Staff etc is killed. Keifer Sutherland plays Tom Kirkman who is the “designated survivor” allocated the job in such an event to become president.

Sutherland is brilliant as the independent Kirkman who must then go on to win an election despite not having the apparatus of a major political party behind him. The thing about Kirkman is that he’s a thoroughly decent guy, sort of like Samuel Richardson’s ‘Sir Charles Grandison’, an 18^th century novel that Jane Austen liked.

The secondary characters including chief of staff (Italia Ricci), press secretary (Kal Penn), Defense secretary (Adan Canto) and a designate FBI agent (Maggie Q) are absolutely brilliant assisted by a stunning script. I just lapped this show up it has everything. In one scene people are in the White House Hallway watching TV in the next scene FBI agent Hannah Wells is storming a house in Maryland gun drawn.

Because Penny Kirkman (Mckenna Grace) the daughter is now grown up it would be impossible to have a fourth season but it was great while it lasted, I developed an attachment to all the main characters and will remember the highlights, and certain scenes (like White House staff watching TV in the hallway) as long as I’m alive.

TV review: This Is A Robbery: The World’s Biggest Art Heist, Netflix (2021)

The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston was poorly protected and badly staffed in 1990 when robbers dressed as cops tricked their way inside, trussed up the guards, and over a period of 81 minutes stole works of art valued at over $200 million. The thieves cut the paintings out of their frames, damaging them irrevocably. It’s a heart-breaking scenario and it really happened.

This is why I love Netflix. What fictional crime drama can compete with the emotions that this show promises to invoke? If killing is a symbol of separation and love for unity, then ‘This Is A Robbery’ is a celebration of separation and loss because there is no neatly tied-up finale.

They never found the works.

The people the police and the FBI fingered for the heist are or were all petty criminals, not dashing thieves with high-tech gadgetry. Sure the playbook the thieves wrote for the robbery was inventive but the aftermath didn’t involve a car screeching off into the darkness with the cops hot on their heels. It involved a museum guard with duct tape wrapped around his head, abandoned gilt frames scattered around the exhibition room, and a guard’s office in disarray.

It involved merely destruction.

The habits and character of the people involved in the robbery warrant further inspection so if they ever find the art I hope they make a new series. Rembrandt is such a gigantic name in the art world and when a painting by the master goes missing you stand up and take notice. I took notice and I lament the loss and possible damage to his painting of a boat on the Sea of Galilee. Christ knows there are a lot of Old Masters in America but every one of them is worth preservation. This is why owning a painting such as this is a responsibility as well as a benefit. If you own a Picasso or a Matisse you have to look after it so that everyone can have the benefit of seeing it in real life.

TV review: Black Earth Rising, Netflix (2018)

What got me so strongly about this brilliant drama is the fact that I’d never heard a whiff of it before. The lack of attention and comment goes to standards as this is easy to overlook, but for the wrong reasons. For a start it starts very slowly, almost nothing happens for a good long while.

Because it’s a slow starter it would be easy to turn off. I read on the internet that it got good reviews but personally nobody had ever said anything about it in my purview of attention.

Genocide is a hard topic to treat.

The drama manages to do it well because of some fine acting but the main thing for me is the script. It’s tight as a drum, with short scenes often remotely connected though lying side by side. You are dragged from one character to another as you try to fit the pieces together. This puzzle-like characteristic suited me down to the ground.

John Goodman is great as Michael Innis playing opposite Michaela Coel’s Kate Ashby, a survivor of the Rwandan genocide living and working in London as a legal investigator. Innis is a lawyer as is Kate’s mother Eve (Harriet Walker). 

This is realpolitik and I have no way of knowing how accurate or not the scenario is but it felt good. There are some wonderful performances relating to people in power including Abena Ayivor’s President Mundanzi and her colleague David Runihura (Lucian Msumati) who do it very convincingly with an overlay of oily charm that has the right astringency to make you feel uneasy about them. I particularly liked these liminal spaces that are explored in the drama. Another standout is Immanuel Imani who plays a young man who used to be a child soldier.

Because the show talks about crime there are secrets, and this makes viewing the drama compulsive. Everyone wants to know more about things that touch them closely, and the secrets that these characters carry inside them are laden with portent. There is a gravitas inhering in this program that stems from history’s blackest source.

TV review: Elize Matsunaga: Once Upon A Crime, Netflix (2021)

This brilliant slow-moving Brazilian docuseries chronicles the life of a young woman from a home with modest circumstances who marries into the family of a rich manufacturer in Sao Paolo. Elize Matsunaga is charged with shooting her husband and chopping him up then disposing of the body parts. All this is already known. 

What comes out in the show is the circumstances that drove Elize to kill Marcos Matsunaga, a young man from a prominent food manufacturing dynasty who loved hunting and had a predilection for call girls. It was on a website for escorts that Marcos first met Elize but even after the were married and had a child he kept going back for new experiences.

What comes out in the progress of the scandal is how much it affected the country. Issues such as economic disadvantage and domestic violence were discussed in relation to the lives of Elize and Marcos publicly in the newspapers. When the trial finally happened in 2016 there was even more general interest in events.

Like I said this one moves slowly but in the end I was absolutely drawn to the details of the case. What happened between Elize and Marcos became like something happening in my favourite soap opera. Watching the detectives or lawyers or family friends or relatives discuss Marcos’ philandering or Elize’s brutality was like watching Ridge and Steffy on ‘The Bold and the Beautiful’ discuss Shiela.

I see no problem with this type of vicarious prurient enjoyment of other people’s misfortunes, it seems perfectly natural to gossip and to explore parts of our own personalities in the process. Watch this series if you haven’t already, it’s my recommendation for the month of November. It’s subtitled but not very perfectly but it’s not hard to understand, the problem being that while they translate the words the people say they don’t always translate the strap lines describing who people on the screen are. This is a little bit of a bother but not hard for me as I studied French and Italian. Of course the language of the show is Portuguese.

TV review: Web of Make Believe, Netflix (2022)

A fascinating background focus featuring the internet and various crimes, ‘Web of Make Believe’ is co-produced by Ron Howard. Diving deep into a variety of stories of life online since the 90s, the time of birth of the World Wide Web (now shortened today to “the web”), the show entertains and informs. I don’t want to spoil the suspense for potential viewers but the one on Nazis is of especial interest in the light of recent developments. There’s a double-feature on a technology invented by a defence contractor called Harris something (corp or whatever) the existence of which is initially highlighted by a fraudster in jail trying to beat a charge. This was in the years prior to Edward Snowden so it’s of particular interest to geeks like me.

I wanted more episodes and hope that the filmmakers get busy making some. I could easily watch a dozen more of these without batting an eyelid, and for the privilege of watching what they did produce stayed up all night in true cinephile style.

The one on Nazis is interesting because it focuses on a female primary actor, who got caught up in the lifestyle without apparently thinking too deeply on the implications of the nihilistic ideology. It’s a good case study to use to bring the ideas behind Nazism to the attention of a new generation of internet devotees who, apparently devoid of any credible information, give license to such characters to perpetuate the hateful mindset of the Ubermensch.

TV review: Dogs of Berlin, Netflix (2018)

One of the great things about Netflix is the ability to reach into different cultures when viewing entertainment. ‘Dogs of Berlin’ came out five years ago but still seems topical. The main story is about a police officer from East Germany (before combination, though the drama is set in the contemporary era of 2018 or thereabouts) named Kurt Grimmer (Felix Kramer) who has a family as well as a second family with girlfriend Bine (Anna Maria Muhe) who has problems with substance abuse and money. Kurt’s wife Paula (Katharina Schuttler) runs a gift shop and looks after the two kids but Paula isn’t happy with Kurt who, like many cops it seems, is always out of the house busy with his work.

Paula might seem to present few options for scriptwriters but she is interesting in many ways. She starts having an affair with an extortionist who comes to her shop to get protection money. She also has problems with her social services placement who bashes her and ransacks the shop, destroying displays. Then there’s Erol Birkan (Farhi Yardim), Kurt’s partner, who is of Turkish background like the soccer player who brings the two together and whose death starts the drama. The police hierarchy bring in Birkan because of cultural sensitivities considering the large population of people from Turkey in the German capital.

Now things get complicated because Kurt used to be a neo-Nazi and still has links to the group through his brother and mother. They’re also complicated by the fact that Birkan is gay and has problems with his conservative father.

This isn’t a show to watch in the background because it’s all in German so you have to see words on the screen to get subtitles, but it brought me back day after day (it runs to 10 eps) because of the intricacy of the plot and because of the excellent casting. Sinan Farhangmehr for example is great as Hakim Tarik-Amir, the Turkish crime boss, a crazy psychopath who by turns terrorises and attracts people around him and whose paranoia leads to a dramatic conclusion. There’s also Kais Setti as Hakim’s brother Kareem who has almost as much potency as the capo but who manages to be vulnerable at the same time. Where Hakin is bullet-proof Kareen is sensitive and aspirational, he just wants to become the capo like his brother.

Now ‘Dogs of Berlin’ is, like most cop shows, larger than life and hyperbolic, I’m sure though I’ve never been to Germany and I don’t speak the language well enough to follow the news on the media websites published there. Granted that a soccer player with a gold Lamborghini isn’t regularly assassinated in the street. But gambling and drugs goes on everywhere and someone must manage it, why not Turks? In Australia we’ve always had ethnic crime gangs managing the distribution of drugs – Vietnamese, Lebanese, Romanian, Italian – so why not Turks in Berlin? I totally get the accusations of racism, but note how the filmmakers use a new-Nazi group in their script to blunt such barbs. In fact I would absolutely believe that a larger-than-life character like Hakim Tariq-Amir could be in charge of tens of millions of dollars’ worth of drug business.

Bite me.

TV review: American Vandal, Netflix (2018)

Normally when a show of movie wants to claim to be special but has nothing special about it the filmmakers add “American” to the title. It’s a label that means everything and nothing, or that hints at something weird but extraordinary to come. In the case of “American Vandal’ you get the feeling that the makers wanted to point to how quirky the show is (it is quirky) while claiming themselves to be innovative and outstanding (they are).

Having said that I want to note that this show moves slowly. It started as a school project and went to a second season on the back of the success of the first. What the first season entails is an investigation into who was responsible for painting penises on cars in the staff parking lot of a school in California. While this would seem funny the fact is that school authorities zero in on one suspect and he’s taken to court for vandalism.

It's a relatively serious matter in a first-world way, but what the filmmakers Tony Yacenda and Dan Perrault do is press the Pause button and fast forward frame by frame so that they can work out exactly who did it. To do this they interview dozens of people including students and staff. They get leads and clues and then try to work out one by one if it is credible. They get testimony from person A but then interview persons B and C in order to decipher whether person A is a reliable witness. Who is telling the truth?

The show is an excellent primer on youth in America, which would justify the moniker at first blush. But it’s also about the nature of truth itself in an age when electronic devices seem to give us unlimited access to other people’s lives.

The second season goes to Seattle where a person put laxatives in a drink dispenser with predictable results. Again, Yacenda and Perrault get busy with their camera interviewing dozens of people in order to work out who did the deed. This sort of reality television is sometimes cringeworthy but the payoff is precisely in the excessive attention to detail, the fine-tooth combing through evidence in order to find the truth, the blurring of boundaries between heresay and actuality that can characterise a schoolyard. A big thumbs up from me.

TV review: Sunderland Til I Die, Netflix (2020)

Most people reading this blog know I’m not a big fan of soccer but this show was great. It is a docuseries that is all about how an organisation works. Sporting clubs are a little different from most organisations in that people get involved voluntarily and spend money. For most organisations people get involved because they need to and earn money.

So there’s a difference in kind from, say, an organisation like Microsoft where you might work five days a week and earn a salary. But some things are the same. I particularly liked the dynamics between the new manager and the marketing person, a woman, because organisations are often about power imbalances. Because of this they’re more interesting, perhaps, to watch in second hand than to be a part of. 

I truly felt for the fans of Sunderland, a team in the northeast of England where ‘Vera’ is made. Because of my prior association with this region (I love ‘Vera’, the crime drama) ‘Sunderland Til I die’ was doubly engaging.

Now sport is highly suited to this sort of treatment because it’s naturally photogenic. You get shots of stadiums full of fans singing. You get shows of players on the field scoring goals. You get shots of people walking into offices following disappointment. There is a lot for a filmmaker to work with where, for example, Proust’s ‘In Search of Lost Time’ is mainly happening in the reader’s head among the thickets of syntax. So I agree that even sport can be interesting for the viewer, like me, who has no particular interest in sport. 

For this reason ‘Sunderland Til I Die’ can be recommended for anyone who’s worked in an office. In the show there are tons of shots of people walking around offices. The phone calls, the late-night meetings, the waiting for people to get in touch, the bad news received just on deadline, it’s all there but in addition you get the wonderful cut-ups of players on the fields, or practicing, or travelling on a bus to an away game. I loved this show with its goofy fans and their unfathomable obsessions. 

TV review: Quicksand, Netflix (2019)

Unaccountably this brilliant limited series show doesn’t seem to have made much of an impression on the audience. I don’t remember why I bookmarked it but I’m glad I did. It recounts the story of a girl named Maja (Hanna Ardéhn) who’s accused of murder as well as a list of associated crimes.

The job of the filmmakers is to show what happened in the run-up to the fateful day at Djursholm senior high school. Maja is not alone. Her boyfriend Sebastian (Felix Sandman) is killed, but Sibbe has problems, including a distant father who’s given up on him. Maja refuses to abandon Sibbe when everyone else dose, hence the title of the program.

The drama takes place in the present, which mainly results in shots of the inside of a prison, and flashbacks to fill out the lead-up to the school shooting. It quickly becomes evident that Sibbe’s drug-taking is dragging him down, but along with him Maja follows.

I really enjoyed watching the politics of the young people be outlined. At least in a sketchy fashion this allows you to understand something of where the filmmakers are coming from. There is the vile (Maja’s word) Claes Fagerman (Reuben Sallmander) who is the archetypal capitalist villain, and there is Samir Said (William Spetz) a classmate of Maja’s who is the son of immigrants. The politics of this show are relatively sophisticated, matching the topical storyline.

I once wrote a story on school violence, which happens everywhere. The difference with regard to ‘Quicksand’ is that Claes and Sibbe are recreational hunters, so guns are available. The catastrophic result of this mixture – unbraked capitalism, parental neglect, and a kind of uncontrolled nihilism – is the assassination Maja is accused of being involved in. I learned a lot while watching this program though it is very entertaining.

TV review: The Innocent, Netflix (2021)

This camp show has a lot going for it but it trips up in two places. One was the sex scenes with underage girls, which is just silly. You have these masked men leading these Lolicon clad chicks up a staircase in a dark warehouse. It’s supposed to be dreadful but it just looks dumb. There’s nothing sexy or cruel about the scene-making at this point, it looks like a bad theatre production.

The second place I got irritated was where they have a guy use a special implement to cut off a woman’s finger. Now I forgave the filmmakers for the Lolicon stunt but I couldn’t stomach this gratuitous violence. In one case they pull back from exposing too much that is real and in the second instance they go all out to make it as real as they can.

I didn’t object to how the flashbacks work, they add to the forward movement of the plot but it got to the point where all you got was flashbacks. The program is deeply conflicted, it doesn’t know whether it’s coming or going, probably the fault of the writers who were working from a novel. You can get away with much more in literature because you don’t have to show with actors what’s going on. Once you move from the page to the set you have to worry about breaking pornography laws, the medium is more immediate and less suggestive.

I gave up watching in episode seven, it runs to eight eps so I did pretty good but I couldn’t reconcile the disagreements between wish and reality. In the end I stopped watching in the middle of a flashback.

TV review: Burning Body, Netflix (2023)

A Spanish real-life crime drama, ‘Burning Body’ ticks all the boxes. It’s got violence, sex, family, money, even real estate (Rosa Perales lives in a nice big house with a pool). It’s a walking soap opera. It’s not just true-to-life but Perales is attractive in real life – Netflix has a docuseries out about her as well so you can see what she looks like in the courtroom. The title hints to the motivation behind the crime but people outside Spain won’t know anything about Perales so I won’t disclose the details.

The soundtrack used is sexy and knowing, as well as fun. Sometimes one of the actors does a take straight to camera in order to point out the irony of the facts, and this technique adds humour where in reality there is none. It’s not funny when an innocent man (even though he did argue with his girlfriend and was probably overly macho) is murdered, driven to a secluded spot by a reservoir, and burned in his car with petrol. Eva Llorach is good as Ester Varona the detective who’s appointed to investigate the crime. There is a lot of suspense as she starts to doubt Perales’ account (Perales blamed her ex-husband Javi; played by Isak  Feriz) and step by step with her subaltern Eduard (Pep Ambros) she hones in on the truth. 

It was especially interesting to see how a jury trial is conducted in Spain for this kind of case, the jury sits in open court (no box) and the prosecutor is where a judge would sit in the Anglo system. The defence attorney sits off to the side near the person charged, and there is no box for the accused as well, they just sit on a bench. Another difference is the fact that a jury’s decision doesn’t have to be unanimous in Spain, one or more jurors can dissent from the majority opinion, with a threshold being set by the court. So when Perales was convicted it had to be at least seven jurors in favour of a “guilty” verdict. One dissented and she got eight “guilties”. 

It's a strange plot because it’s tied to reality. I think a show like this entertains because of the idiosyncrasies of the plot, some things – like how Perales allowed Pedro (Jose Manuel Poga) to proposed marriage when she actually still liked Albert (Quim Gutierrez). It’s a strange story, stranger than anything I’ve seen coming out of the offices of fictional drama movies or TV shows. There’s something so dodgy about Perales that you cannot imagining anyone dreaming up the story out of thin air. Well worth watching.

TV review: Crime Scene: The Times Square Killer, Netflix (2021)

In 1978 I was in Times Square. I remember dad took us into a cheap restaurant that had a juke box at the end of the table. 

‘Crime Scene: The Times Square Killer’ captures an era, a time of sleaze, peep shows, prostitution, and crime that back in the day I had no inkling about. I remember when we were walking at night in New York someone ran across the road chasing someone else or getting away from a pursuer.

It’s such a long time ago.

Ron Howard is one of the producers of this show, and it’s nicely made with a set of themes – exploitation of women, commerce, and the idea of freedom – but nothing is left unexplored. It’s as if it was as important for the filmmakers to depict the era as it was to show the progress of the police case.

The killer’s name is Richard Cottingham and he was prolific. Parts of the movie are unexpected, especially as relates to Cottingham’s later revelations. Even though he was convicted in the 1980s – a time when Times Square was changing as a result of the AIDS epidemic – he pled not guilty, so that the closure that families sought was absent.

Coming back to this period of time now is like going to a museum where they have dioramas. I used to love the Australian museum when I was small, the little displays in the long room showing dinosaurs underwater. In modern aquariums they do similar things with live displays by having the water go right up to the glass enabling children to see the fishes swimming. It’s as though you’re watching another world. Howard and his team have done something like this for 70s New York, and I remember being there. It was for me a visit too short by a long shot.

TV review: The Sinner, Netflix (2017-21)

This slow-moving crime noir features Bill Pullman as an unlikely detective who revels in a bit of S&M on his days off, I really liked the secondary themes of redemption and the need to find a reason behind each killing rang true. I’ve been watching another Netflix TV show titled ‘Criminal’ which features detectives in the interview room, a low-budget production with long takes that relies purely on dialogue and it also requires the REASON for the crime to be evident before the cops will charge someone. 

With ‘Criminal’ there’s also a French version which only unfortunately runs to three eps. ‘The Sinner’ runs to four seasons with each season having about eight eps. This is slow crime, moody and muted, dark and uncomfortable where the dialogue takes you to places other than where you set out from, a living room or a den in a house you’ve been living in seemingly forever. The fact that there’s a truth to uncover is an added bonus but the main part of the action is in the feelings you get while watching the incremental progress of the story, watching the close-ups of faces that hardly change expression.

With ‘The Sinner’ you also get nice northern/New Englandy settings. Season four was shot entirely in Nova Scotia so there are pine trees and there’s cold, clear water. In one scene Harry Ambrose the main character is submerged in the water as though he’s being baptised. This is in season four. Also in season four there are tiny charms the girl who seems to jump off a cliff (did Harry really see that, it was late and dark and his mind might’ve been playing tricks) had put about the landscape. A tiny ceramic Buddha is among them, but what does it mean?

The issues that this show deals with are interesting and the ways it deals with them are intelligent. This is in contrast to most crime dramas which always seem to take one of a number of superficial approaches to the subjects they deal with. ‘The Sinner’ is about the dialogue so as you’re watching, as in any good soap opera, it’s not the plot so much as the things the characters say that drags you under, lulls you with a sense of right, and leaves you quietly musing on the shore of your imagination. I loved both ‘The Sinner’ and ‘Criminal’ because they show what crime can be in competent hands.

TV review: Madoff: The Monster of Wall Street, Netflix (2023)

Really nice docuseries, this show chronicles the promising story of Bernie Madoff who ran a Ponzi scheme from the 1960s to 2008 when the GFC brought it down as investors started to ask for their money back. Madoff was a crook of the most insidious kind, fooling an idiotic Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Wall Street watchdog, at multiple points despite having the fraud handed to them on a platter by a Boston quant. 

The SEC comes out of this debacle looking as foolish as the ratings agencies who enabled financial institutions to convince investors to buy their flawed home loan securities. In the case of Madoff, time and again the SEC was told that something about Madoff’s hedge fund was wrong, and on one occasion Madoff told the SEC commissioner, “I don’t have a hedge fund” when he had a whole office building floor of employees forging documents to keep investors happy. The scheme was grandiose and sustained over a period of decades and nobody ever looked into it apart from the Boston company already mentioned as well as a couple of journalists. These people ended up being vindicated but I imagine it was a bitter pill to swallow considering how many people had their life savings eliminated.

Netflix does these series really well and this four-part dramatic work, much of which uses actors to pretend to be Madoff and his family and employees (family were often employees) is a good example of how television can offer up something that is both true and interesting. We think of real life as lacking the drama of fiction, and of course it does, but it also has the added quality that only was is true can give: serendipity. In the Madoff case nobody would expect the SEC to so signally fail at so many points, and when finally the banking crisis brings the Ponzi scheme down it’s not just a relief but you also worry about the principals. 

In fact the disaster deeply affected the Madoff family as you can see if you take the time to watch the film. This is a pity, even though you are forced by your own conscience to deplore the criminal activities that Madoff was engaged in. I felt a deep sense of sadness and an allied sense of relief that nobody in my family was misted up in it.

TV review: Class Act, Netflix (2023)

A story about a businessman in France who became involved in politics, this show is wonderfully entertaining. Based in parts more strictly and in other parts more loosely on the truth – obviously the scriptwriters didn’t have access to day-to-day conversations between Bernard Tapie and his wife – this series is about what it means to grow up poor in a country where, even today, social mobility is low.

Much lower than it is in Australia.

Tapie is rough but engaging, a man whose father was a heating mechanic and who got into business by promoting one good idea – a subscription service for appliances. He parlayed his success into other ventures and ended up working as the manager for a football club, Olympic Marseilles. I won’t spoil the fun by invoking too much detail about how his downfall arrived, but let’s say that it involves fast practices. French readers will of course already know the truth, if not all the details.

Tapie is played by Laurent Lafitte and Dominique, his wife, is played by Josephine Japy, both of whom support their roles perfectly. Dominique is charming and intelligent, Bernard is likewise but he’s also a bit brash, a bit not-quite-the-thing. During the course of the movie Bernard’s daughter from his first marriage grows up and joins him in his undertakings. Bernard’s son with Dominique also grows up. Bernard and Dominique obviously don’t get older as they’re played by the same actors throughout, and while this seems a bit forced it ultimately works because of the pace of the program. 

Bernard is a symbol of something that France wants but doesn’t quite know how to attain: financial success. This is what draws Francois Mitterand, the president, to introduce Tapie to politics as the minister for urban affairs. Looking back Tapie’s innovations in regard to his portfolio seem spot on but political realities mean that he’s only in his role for a short period of time. Perhaps if the Socialists had kept Tapie on in the job he might’ve really achieved something, but his methods were too different (as usual) for those around him. Tapie thought at lightning speed and didn’t suffer fools gladly, so rubbing people up the wrong way not only caused problems but it stemmed from the same place that gave people something to admire.

A meteor who shone brightly in the sky of France’s fin-de-siecle firmament, Tapie was born to rule but never got the chance. Good miniseries though. Our gain is France’s loss.

TV review: Who Killed Little Gregory, Netflix (2019)

This French docuseries uncovers for overseas viewers who might know – probably won’t know – anything about it the story of one of the most high-profile murder cases in the country’s history. A small bot, aged four years, is thrown into the Vologne River in eastern France and drowned. Prior to the murder a series of phone calls and letters aimed at the family had occurred, making this case all the more startling.

The Villemin family and its extended branches of cousins and uncles comes into focus and a style of “omerta” (a Mafia-type silence practiced in order to protect members) making the situation distinctly creepy. There is a gun. The Villemins struggle against a national media intent on uncovering the truth about the death, and a storyline not dissimilar to the case of Madeleine McCann in Portugal ensues.

Running to five episodes, ‘Who Killed Little Gregory’ is wonderfully quirky and unique. I came away refreshed for having watched a show in a different language (one I have some knowledge of) and on account of the particular fashions of the 1970s and 80s, because the bulk of the footage belongs to that era. The French judicial system worked slowly however so that parts of the story play out in more recent years. Definitely worth watching if you like cop shows.