Hacker Cinema
Lupin
2021 · TV series · 3 seasons
Created by George Kay, François Uzan, Marie Roussin, Florent Meyer, Tigran Rosine
Inspired by the adventures of Arsène Lupin, gentleman thief Assane Diop sets out to avenge his father for an injustice inflicted by a wealthy family.
6 positive1 negative4 neutralfrom 11 commenters
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11 comments on Hacker News
Trying to learn French I exported all the subtitles for an episode of a French tv show ‘Lupin’ and then worked my way through reading it first and then watched it but unfortunately felt no easier. Probably because reading it once through really isn’t enough.
Would be fun if there was an entire 10 week course that worked up to an episode of real tv that by the time you get to it watching is completely fluent.
> 3) The lack of global hits is very strange.
Yeah, this part of the article really struck me:
> what’s really interesting is there aren’t that many global hits, meaning that everyone in the world watches the same thing. Squid Game was very rare in that way. And Wednesday looks like one of those too, very rare in that way.
I have to wonder what the problem is. I've watched more foreign-language shows in the last 3 years than in the rest of my 51 years combined thanks to shows on Netflix, HBO Max, Apple TV+, etc. I'd love to see more of them, but they aren't surfacing in my searches and recommendations very frequently. I'd really like more variety in show selections. They don't even have to be big hits like Squid Games or Lupin. I'd be interested in any show that's good regardless of whether it's been a blockbuster hit.
On something like Hulu, there are tons of shows that mostly fall into Police/Medical procedural, Office-like sitcom, or Friends-like sitcom. Those are fine, and some are even pretty decent, but I'm really tired of those formats. Seeing shows about other cultures has been fascinating. And just having other types of stories is nice, too.
I'm the same as far as Netflix, they have enough "good enough" shows for me to keep them around. I figure if I average ~2-3 hours a week it is still worth it.
Yes some of their new shows are... not to my liking (hey, maybe somebody out there really loves Warrior Nun but I stopped after a few episodes) but several are (Shadow and Bone, Witcher, Umbrella Academy, Ozarks, Cobra Kai, Lupin) I'm looking forward to future seasons, or finishing the series (in the case of Ozarks).
HBO Max might fall into the season-subscription category for me, where I take it 3-6 months a year. And maybe Disney+ too except I've got a large backlog there.
Anyway, the behavior change for me is to watch a show sooner rather than later. I was working my way through Brooklyn Nine-Nine on Hulu and reached season 6, taking a break for a few weeks, to return and discover the remained of the episodes are tied to a live TV subscription. Not sure if some license deal expired in time I took a break after season 5, or if it was always like that (however, I don't think so).
Lupin isn’t that good of a show. I think Netflix has the best shows of any media company year to year. They have so many. So Lupin is great, but Netflix has other high quality stuff too to make it not as impressive.
Atlanta because you’re from there? You wouldn’t watch it otherwise? I think it might be the best 30 min non sitcom ever.
It's a poor approach for people like me. My main thing is video games, youtube, and reading. But I like really good TV series. I've enthusiastically watched Peaky Blinders as soon as it's available after I heard about it and picked it up after season 4. I didn't start watching Breaking Bad until Season 4 finished airing. Same with a bunch of other shows, Blacklist (S6), Game of Thrones (S4), Sherlock(S5), Mandalorian (S2), Ozarks (S3). That doesn't give a lot of shows time to catch my eye.
The ones I recall watching after S1 aired over the past decade are Fargo, Better Call Saul (because I saw BB), True Detective, House of Cards, Atlanta (because I'm from Atlanta), Lupin, because they got truly rave reviews. I'm even more conservative with Netflix shows now because it's pretty much a given that anything I even attempt to watch is going to get cancelled after a season or 2.
Danish: I watched The Rain, and Chestnut Man is on my list to watch soon. I'm also interested in Elves and The Killing.
Russian: I loved Road To Calvary and To The Lake, and watched some of Better Than Us and liked it.
German: One of my favorite shows of all time is Babylon Berlin :)
Norwegian: Ragnarok is kinda interesting.
Egyptian: Paranormal is good, and only 5 episodes long.
Spanish: Cathedral of the Sea is interesting, and I loved Ministry of Time - although this one vanished from all online streamings :/
Swedish: The Restaurant is available on Sundance/Star or some other channels. Like Downton Abbey. Just watched a couple episodes, but it was nice
French: Lupin and Les Revenants (The Returned) - although I think the second is not on Netflix now, but somewhere else. Watched it many years ago
Belgium: not fantastic, but Thieves of the Wood is just one season long and enjoyable.
Italian: I liked Curon, although it didn't seem to please too many people, I think?
On my list: Trapped, which is Icelandic.
Cheat: Hinterland - it's made in both English and Welsh
The image at the top of this article is from Lupin, which indeed has excellent subtitles. There was one moment in the first episode though which stood out to me as almost a translator's flourish - it was just a beautiful subtitling choice.
An auctioneer responds to a bid at one point with, "if we'd started at this price, we would've saved some time."
Then he shrugs, and, in the original French dialogue, he says "Mais, enfin, c'est très bien," which basically means "But, in the end, it's fine".
The English subtitle the translator chose, though, is perfect. Their auctioneer says:
"But c'est la vie."
Knowing when you can get away with a subtitle like that must be the height of pleasure for a translator.
There was an EconTalk about Art Loss Register that covered this very question [1]. The insurance company returns it as long as the original owner pays back the amount paid out with some interest. The insurance company doesn't benefit from any appreciation of the artwork though.
What's unclear though is that (as described in the same podcast), the insurance company doesn't pay out the full value of the artwork. The TV show Lupin uses this as the plot device whereby a fraudster claims the artwork is stolen to get the insurance money as a kind of temporary loan.
[1] https://www.econtalk.org/anja-shortland-on-lost-art/ @ ~minute 20
Youtube link w/ timestamp: https://youtu.be/eRbSFSZPY8s?t=1149
TV/film - is there something new even remotely popular across the world that's French?
Indian here who doesn't know French - just finished watching all four seasons of Dix Pour Cent (Call My Agent) and really enjoyed it. I also watched Lupin (after learning that it stars Omar Sy who I loved in the movie The Intouchables).
Netflix is moving into European production because governements subsidies it. It's a pure commercial move , Netflix doesn't care at all about the respective culture of 20+ country of UE.
I'm From France , my country back movies with hundreds of millions of funding every year. New European laws are forcing governements to open those fundings to "Foreign Institutions", that's why they are making this move.
This law enable Netflix to make content much cheaper using public funding while using each country culture to improve customer retention.
As a French coming from African descent I'm absolutly terrified of what they are going to do with character like Napoleon or Charles de Gaulles...
Lupin show a clear tendency to override history fidelity toward a much more political narrative... It's frightening because they is literally THOUSANDS of story that do contain French coming from African Descent or Foreigners soldiers who decided to fought for France[0]
Seeing Big tech taking over everything with a political agenda is deeply saddening.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senegalese_Tirailleurs
For an learner who wants to understand, I’d strongly recommend _Le petit prince_e and _L’homme qui plantait des arbres_. Both about an hour long, beautifully animated, adapted verbatim from books that have easy to find translations.
Both as meant for children (and adult who think like them) so you might feel condescended to — but both have a very simple, classic language, distinctly articulated that makes it easier to follow for foreigners.
The stories are wonderful too: about what makes a life worthwhile and conservation.
The other recommendation I’d make are:
* audio-books that might not have movie equivalent: the accent in _Regain_, by the same Giono as _L’homme qui plantait des arbres_ has me to tears;
* any version of Criminal (the UK one was popular but the French, German and Spanish one are great too); all have the same minimal set and nothing but dialogue (it feels like a hilarious and successful exercise in saving money on production);
* hopefully _Lupin_: it’s brand new, I haven’t watched it yet but friends say it’s great. It seems to have a wide variety of contemporary accents, fast paced dialogue so not for the early learner.