TV: Inspector Montalbano and The Bridge
My family really seem to have gotten into detective stuff, and we've been watching a lot of foreign imports that air on BBC 4.
The first thing we all got together and watched was Inspector Montalbano, a series of film-length episodes set in Sicily in the fictional town of Vigata, which is supposed to be modelled on the real area of Regusa, I think. The series is really nice, because the crimes are usually quite soft and there are all sorts of personal things going on, like whether Mimi will ever get married. It's got this lovely Italian character that's hard to describe, but infuses the whole series with delightful charm. Little things like Montalbano's obsession with good food, the way his policemen are all like gung-ho boys when they (very) occasionally crack out the firearms and the various old women and busy bodies who populate the town and make his life difficult or easy, almost by whim. Important to the drama is his sense of incorruptibility and fairness (which I guess you can see why with the Mafia on their doorstep), and the political machination he always has to deal with, with pressure from such and such powerful and wealthy people who want the case wrapped up in such and such a way. It's nothing like the political backbiting which made Zen, another Italian crime drama produced by the BBC, fun, but it shares some feature with it that's hard to describe and seems quintessentially Italian. But the quiet life of rural Italy underlines the whole thing and keeps it low key. It's really well produced and I would recommend it to anyone who likes crime drama.
The other series we're getting into is The Scandinavian/Danish production, The Bridge, which is airing now on BBC 4. It's completely the opposite to Inspector Montalbano. It's a really dark show, about the worst of human nature. The whole thing is filmed in depressing sepia. The two main characters are the lead detectives from the two sides of the border. The Swedish detective is a transgendered woman with Asperger's, for whom emotive communication just passes her by and she does everything by the book, while the Danish detective is an easy-going man with a family who's just had a vasectomy and is a little more relaxed. Their antagonist is a criminal terrorist who wants to make a statement by killing people in certain ways to highlight what looks like a liberal agenda and some of what he does is starting to get creepier. To say the whole thing is unusual would be to put it mildly. The series also interweaves random lives into the investigation long before you realise their related. So you know something about certain witnesses when they bump into the main characters. This again makes the series quite weird. I have no idea what to make of it yet, but it's strangely compelling.
The first thing we all got together and watched was Inspector Montalbano, a series of film-length episodes set in Sicily in the fictional town of Vigata, which is supposed to be modelled on the real area of Regusa, I think. The series is really nice, because the crimes are usually quite soft and there are all sorts of personal things going on, like whether Mimi will ever get married. It's got this lovely Italian character that's hard to describe, but infuses the whole series with delightful charm. Little things like Montalbano's obsession with good food, the way his policemen are all like gung-ho boys when they (very) occasionally crack out the firearms and the various old women and busy bodies who populate the town and make his life difficult or easy, almost by whim. Important to the drama is his sense of incorruptibility and fairness (which I guess you can see why with the Mafia on their doorstep), and the political machination he always has to deal with, with pressure from such and such powerful and wealthy people who want the case wrapped up in such and such a way. It's nothing like the political backbiting which made Zen, another Italian crime drama produced by the BBC, fun, but it shares some feature with it that's hard to describe and seems quintessentially Italian. But the quiet life of rural Italy underlines the whole thing and keeps it low key. It's really well produced and I would recommend it to anyone who likes crime drama.
The other series we're getting into is The Scandinavian/Danish production, The Bridge, which is airing now on BBC 4. It's completely the opposite to Inspector Montalbano. It's a really dark show, about the worst of human nature. The whole thing is filmed in depressing sepia. The two main characters are the lead detectives from the two sides of the border. The Swedish detective is a transgendered woman with Asperger's, for whom emotive communication just passes her by and she does everything by the book, while the Danish detective is an easy-going man with a family who's just had a vasectomy and is a little more relaxed. Their antagonist is a criminal terrorist who wants to make a statement by killing people in certain ways to highlight what looks like a liberal agenda and some of what he does is starting to get creepier. To say the whole thing is unusual would be to put it mildly. The series also interweaves random lives into the investigation long before you realise their related. So you know something about certain witnesses when they bump into the main characters. This again makes the series quite weird. I have no idea what to make of it yet, but it's strangely compelling.