Tuesday 24 December 2013

Engrenages
(2005 – )

RATING:80%
FORMAT:tv

[Spiral]

Realistic (yet strangely melodramatic) cop drama that uses a desaturated color scheme to emphasize its gritty realism and actors that do not seem to wear makeup. The visual style is gory-to-disgusting but this stresses character via the implied motivations behind such heinous criminality. Moreover, the visual excess is married to a judicious mix of litotes and suggested carnality.

The acting (especially Caroline PROUST), characters, dialogue, situations and relationships are very well played by all and keep one glued to the tv set - they never stray from the straight-and-narrow of everyday reality.

Because it is impossible to strictly separate law enforcement from law breaking, we find many of the characters are not as squeaky-clean as they might otherwise appear.

The endemic and systemic nature of crime in the West means that absolutely anyone could be a perpetrator: A cop, a lawyer, an immigrant, a judge, a prostitute, a government minister. There is no true separation between criminal and law abider here and this adds layers of interrelationships to the already morally-complex dramaturgy and mise en scène that focuses on a single murder for an entire series with various digressions for minor issues. Our desire to eliminate crime is matched by our desire not to report the wrongdoing of anyone known to us personally. So we accept a certain level of criminality as natural – especially in ourselves.

This series deals effectively with the emotional affects of events rather more than the physical causes - the former is the basis of all good drama while the latter merely acts as dramaturgical catalyst. This drama also does not feel the need for the characters to brandish firearms at the drop of a hat in case the audience is going to fall asleep and is all the more exciting for it.

Copyright © 2013 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved.
Posted by Frank TALKER™ at 14:07
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Science:



No science is immune to the infection of politics and the corruption of power.



Jacob Bronowski… (1908 - 74), British scientist, author. Encounter (London, July 1971).


Sleep of Reason:



The dream of reason produces monsters. Imagination deserted by reason creates impossible, useless thoughts. United with reason, imagination is the mother of all art and the source of all its beauty.



Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes… (1746-1828), Spanish painter. Caption to Caprichos, number 43, a series of eighty etchings completed in 1798, satirical and grotesque in form.


Humans & Aliens:



I am human and let nothing human be alien to me.



Terence… (circa 190-159 BC), Roman dramatist. Chremes, in The Self-Tormentor [Heauton Timorumenos], act 1, scene 1.


Führerprinzip:



One leader, one people, signifies one master and millions of slaves… There is no organ of conciliation or mediation interposed between the leader and the people, nothing in fact but the apparatus - in other words, the party - which is the emanation of the leader and the tool of his will to oppress. In this way the first and sole principle of this degraded form of mysticism is born, the Führerprinzip, which restores idolatry and a debased deity to the world of nihilism.



Albert Camus… (1913-60), French-Algerian writer & philosopher. The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt: New York: Vintage Books, (1984; page 182.)