Winds and Breezes

Dolmen on TF1

Today, while glancing through the Ouest-France site, I happened upon an article about something called Dolmen on TF1.

Ths synopsis, which I've borrowed from this site is as follows:

Marie Kermeur ( Ingrid Chauvin ), inspecteur de police revient dans son île de naissance pour épouser un navigateur (Xavier Deluc ). Mariage qui s'annonce mal car alors qu'elle essaye sa robe blanche, une mouette ensanglantée se retrouve dans les plis de son voile. Ce mauvais présage sera suivi par bien d'autres incidents bizarres,avant qu'il arrive malheur à quelqu'un de très proche d'elle...Et çà ne fera que s'amplifier...

Or, in English, character A, Marie Kermeur, police inspector, returns to the home of her birth (an island off the cost of Brittany) to marry a navigator, character B. Things start off really promisingly as she finds a bloody seagull in the folds of her wedding dress while she's trying it on. This bad omen is followed up by other strange incidents before some bad happens someone very close to her...and things only get worse from then on.

It's a six part series dreamed up for the summer on TF1 which from a content point of view has much in common with TV3's standards. It's commanding audiences of 12.1 million which makes TF1 and TF1's advertisers more than happy.

The response in Sauzon, one of the towns on Belle-Ile-En-Mer is somewhere between mixed and scathing, particularly about the fact that the script is somewhat cliche ridden. From the Ouest-France article, for example :

Éric, un solide matelot, se fâche. « Ils ont vraiment collé tous les clichés possibles sur la Bretagne. » Faignant l'outrage, l'incident diplomatique, il pose son verre sur le comptoir, se lève et déclame héroïque : « J'vais chercher ma cornemuse. » Il en jouera jusque tard dans la nuit...

If you read French at all, I recommend this blog entry for an overview from a critical Breton along with some comments and a spoiler. From An Tourtan there's this one highlighting some of the more obvious cultural gaffes.

A quick look at the FNAC website reveals that there is a book and a DVD collection. The DVD will be available from 28 July (it's due to finish on TF1 maybe the week beforehand I think) at the knockdown price of 29.99E. From that I'm assuming that most of the hypermarkets will be flogging it for a bit less around the same time so it's joined the shopping list of one Guillaume Plisson print, several notebooks from Nota Bene who somewhat disappointingly do not have a web presence, an album of choral music by the male voice choir in Pluvigner.

Of course, the TF1 DVD will completely destroy my good Breton karma which I built up with four tickets for concerts at the FI in Lorient, possession of two Yann-Fanch Kemener CDs and four Didier Squiban solo CDs plus the tinbox Ar Re Youank CD but I'm interested to see just how bad this really is.

When I've worked my way through it, I will post a review.

Edit: Meanwhile for a seriously tongue in cheek summary in French:

Episode 1
Episode 2
Episode 3
Episode 4

posted by Winds and Breezes @ 11:36 AM