Written by Sébastien Marnier And Juliette Soubrier
Directed by Sébastien Marnier
Tagline: "La vie dont il rêvait était celle d'un autre."
I'm trying to watch more and more non English movies and shows whenever I can and a few weeks ago, I saw a trailer for this seven part, French political thriller miniseries. Its about two men and they're rather worlds apart.
The men in question are former classmates. The main focus was on the titular Paolo Da Costa (Jérôme Niel). He's an ordinary guy who moves pianos and had a girlfriend named Winnie (Guslagie Malanda). For the most part, Paolo seemed to love her, even going as far as to marrying her but he wasn't above cheating on her or even abandoning her as the miniseries went on.
Paolo's main fixation was on his former classmate Téophane Tolbiac (Yoann Gasiorowski), who has gone into politics, was running for mayor and had built a rather nice support system for him. Téophane even had a wife named Géraldine (Magalie Lépine-Blondeau) and a baby on the way. Paolo intersecting himself into Téophane's life was rather tactical and it didn't take long for the bodies to start dropping.
Anyone vaguely connected to Téophane or anyone who posed an obstacle to Paolo's obsessive endeavour was taken out and rather gruesomely too, I might add. The show didn't exactly skimpy on the violence and the gore. There's a few times where it veered a little into the horror side of things.
Another thing it didn't skimp on was the sex and nudity. With American shows (including cable and streaming) suddenly getting a bit too prudish for their own good, this show didn't shy in nudity from both men and women. In fact, there's an abundance of nudity on display with this show having no problem in showing it's leading man in all of his glory. It's rather refreshing.
Of course the finale really brought things to a head with Paolo and Téophane. The miniseries blurred the lines between obsession and sexual desire between the two and I expected a rather horrific conclusion between the two men. I wasn't exactly disappointed with the outcome either.
- Episode titles were Episode 1, Culture Clash, The Heart Of Roisson, The King Is Dead, Eating Your Dead, Seperate Love and First Love.
- One of the most striking posters for the show came from a scene in the fifth episode.
- Standout music: The score for the show was composed by Pyrit (Thomas Kuratli).
- Chronology: Present day and set in the fictional town of Roisson, Champagne in France.
Paolo would easily be one of the best miniseries I've watched this year. A fascinating look into politics, masculinity and sexuality. Great performances from both Jérôme Niel and Yoann Gasiorowski throughout. I'd easily recommend this to watch.
Rating: 8 out of 10
No comments:
Post a Comment