VARGAS: UN LIEU UNCERTAIN
France, 2009, 87 minutes, Colour.
Jean- Hughes Anglade, Charlotte Rampling, Jacques Spiesser, Jean- Pierre Leaud, Stanislas Merhar. Helene Fillieres. Corrine Masiero.
Directed by Josee Dayan.
French television made a series of murder mysteries based on stories by Fred Vargas, the Fred Vargas Collection. This is the second film in the series.
At the centre of the series is a sympathetic police officer, Detective, Jean- Baptiste Adamsberg, played by Jean- Hughes Anglade. His assistant, Danglard, is played by Jacques Spiesser. They are in each episode.
There is some background to the life of the detective, especially his relationship with a musician, his young son, and his living with these memories. Charlotte Rampling plays the mother of the musician and is called in to assist – and finally to rescue – Adamsberg in a crisis. All were directed by Josee Dayan.
This was the first in a series of four telemovies based on novels by Fred Vargas. There are some bizarre murders in this story, the finding of feet cut off from victims, bodies cut into small pieces.
The investigation opens up aspects of a cult from the 18th century, especially in Eastern Europe, the clash between the family of vampires and their enemies, the 21st-century descendant destroying the vampires by cutting off their feet.
There is a murder of an old man and his body cut to pieces, suspicions on his gardener to whom he left all his money, a visit from his doctor who also serves as a vet helping with the birth cat. It soon becomes quite evident who the murderer is but the audience is taken through the process of the research, trying to identify who the family descendant is who is doing the murders, and a mysterious character who seems to be the villain who is revealed to be the unknown son of Adamsberg.
Pascal Greggory has a key role.
The next in the series, the Chalk Circle Man, involves Charlotte Rampling’s character more directly.
1. Murder mystery and investigation? Part of a series for television? The Paris settings, the police and the investigation?
2. Paris, police precincts, apartments, restaurants? The visit to England, Highgate Cemetery? The concert and London streets? The visit to Serbia, the train, homes, bars, the crypt? Houses on the outskirts of Paris, the countryside? The musical score?
3. The inspector as the hero, his work with the police, detection, his personality?
4. The inspector unwilling to go to London, helping with the birth of kittens, unwilling to be present when his partner plays the violin at a concert? Danglard’s going, the concert, the Scotland Yard detective, the madman in the street, the body at Highgate Cemetery, mangled, the discovery of the feet? The connection with other murders?
5. The murder of the old man, cut to pieces, his gardener inheriting the money, running away? The arrival of the doctor? The doctor helping with the kitten?
6. The suspect, the leads? The detective and his violent attack, his seeming to thwart the investigation? Problems with his daughter, drugs and arrest? The suspicion that somebody authoritative was impeding the investigation? Blaming the inspector?
7. The young man, the revelation that he was the inspector’s son, the inspector not knowing? The young man and his determination to destroy the inspector?
8. The judge, her missing husband, Danglard and his interview with her, her impeding the investigation, the later resignation?
9. The message with Cyrillic lettering, the town in Serbia, the inspector travelling by train, in the town, the woman at the restaurant? The inspector, his being trapped, in the vault, coffins, the voice from outside, his being rescued by Mathilde? That the voice from outside was not a young man but an old man impersonating the voice?
10. Danglard, his concern, the briefing with Mathilde, her going on the train, the rescue?
11. The inspector with the young man, the fact that he was not the killer, some kind of understanding and reconciliation?
12. The doctor, the audience suspicion of him, his knowledge of the female kitten, his impersonating the voice, using the young man as the fall guy, the confrontation, the shooting, the explanation that he was the descendant of the enemy of the vampires and saw his mission as destroying all of them, ending the line? His request to check on the tree in Highgate Cemetery – and its being dead?
13. A more optimistic tone for the inspector and his spending time with his newly-discovered son?
