Hacker Cinema
Spiral
Engrenages
2005 · TV series · 48 min episodes · 8 seasons
Created by Alexandra Clert, Guy-Patrick Sainderichin
ActionAdventureCrimeDramaMystery
This gritty crime drama set in the dark underbelly of Paris follows police officers and lawyers as they investigate and prosecute crimes. Throw any romantic notion of Paris out the window. Crime is dark. The legal system is darker. This is Spiral.
3 positivefrom 3 commenters
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5 comments on Hacker News
As a français, I second this. I'm extremely critical of most TV shows and I tend to quit very fast when get the impression I'm losing time. Engrenages is about the only TV shows I am able to watch in french, and it's a really good one. I'd would say, frankly, that it's our equivalent to The Wire.
I think "Verlan" is kind of old fashioned. It was a lot cooler when the boomers were young IMHO.
Some Verlan words are still in common use in the "banlieues" (i.e. rough neighborhoods), like saying "muff" instead of "femme", "tromé" instead of "métro", "chelou" instead of "louche", etc...
But there are many other slang words in use. A lot of borrowings from English ("cash") or Arabic ("flouz" meaning "money") are used too.
It's probably hard for an English speaking tourist to hang out in these areas. But if you want to get a "feel" for it, I would recommend watch "Spiral" which are some stereotypical "banlieues" scenes. But I suppose it's better than nothing... or going to the "four" to buy drugs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiral_(TV_series)
There is a lot of foreign series and movies on BBC4. Lots of Nordic noir crime stuff. There are also many French shows: Engrenage/Spiral season 7 has just finished.
Much easier to catch these on iPlayer than freeview.
I wish I could do this with subtitles! I hate waiting years for subtitles to TV series and obscure movies to become available. Ones in European languages mostly e.g. Cordon season 2 has been out for years, no English subs available. Latest season of Rita, out for a year, no English subs. The Colombian Ugly Betty, impossible to find many years later. I waited a couple of years for the latest season of Engrenages etc.
Maybe there could be a fixed priced online, which you could contribute towards. I won't pay for movies/tv now, but I'd sure pay for subtitles! Divided between many people, it wouldn't cost much. Not sure how to ensure high quality subs.
(I contributed to doing subs on viki years ago, which seemed like a good thing, but it disappeared, taking all the subtitles with it.)
Die Wand (The Wall, 2012, Austria) - A woman on holiday in the mountains is suddenly trapped behind an invisible wall, with only animals as companions... The movie goes deep into human nature, how we live with nature and other life forms, and is comparably profound with the best writing on those subjects. Incredible.
The Sea That Thinks (2000, Netherlands) - About the self, self-reference, meta-(meta-meta-)narrative, consciousness, illusion.. Wonderfully well-constructed.
2 of Kurosawa's: Dersu Uzala (1974), the story of the friendship of a Russian military map-maker and a Siberian hunter. Fascinating encounter of city man and nomadic hunter, two incompatible modes of living. (I think Yoda is based on Dersu, as Star Wars was based on Hidden Fortress) ..and Ikiru (1952), about a boring goverment office worker who learns he's dying and wants to do something meaningful with his life at last.
Series: My favourites are from France (Engrenages, Les hommes de l’ombre, Le Bureau des Légendes, Un Village Français) and Denmark (Borgen, Arvingerne, Herrens veje/Ride Upon the Storm). Maybe Un Village Français gets my top vote, the epic (7 seasons) story of a French village under Nazi occupation - the politicians, Resistance, communists, militia, Nazis, collaborators, Jews, businessmen etc. Unforgettably touching.