Les témoins

Scandi-noir brings with it a set of expectations which Witnesses duly delivers. Female cop with suppressed issues -- check; a wintry French coastal village dominated by Broadchurch style cliffs -- check; improbable crime scenes that darkly hint at a miscreant with a messed up mind -- check, and the usual cool colour palette of blues and greys -- check.

Genre conventions are not a bad thing, if used deftly, and Witnesses delivers. Marie Dompnier as the female lead investigator, Sandra Winckler, is impressive as the astute cop who exorcises her insomniac nights by obsessively cleaning her apartment. Thierry Lhermitte plays the former high-flying policeman haunted by family tragedy, and as Winkler's former instructor who is implicated in the bizarre crime, suppresses dark secrets about his past. The location shooting in Le Tréport, with its strange funicular railway which is used as a disturbing feature in the first episode, is inspired, and the photography is superb.

This review is based on viewing the introductory episode, which sometimes tends to be dramatically the most engaging with television mini-series, such as The Bridge and its British-French counterpart, The Tunnel, but marred in subsequent weeks by a lurid story trajectory. Hopefully Witnesses will exhibit a narrative restraint where trust is placed in mood and character development without forsaking the sense of unease that is so well established in the opening hour.

Despite the tendency to compare it to recent offerings like The Bridge and The Tunnel etc, really you should forget those and seek to approach this with a clean slate.

We're seeing it with a head start here in Australia, and episode 2 shows that the promise is there to live beyond the initial opening episode and what are always grand setups.

Whats truly astonishing to me is that for the lead actress, Marie Dompnier, this is the first outing for her in front of a camera (i understand she is a seasoned theatre actor). She is transfixing, not only for her appealing appearance (i already have a crush, but will move beyond the superficial hereon in!), but for making her confident female detective character utterly believable. Its something of a triumph right there. She looks as though she has been acting on film for some time. I hope to see more of her in the future.

As i said, im 2 episodes in and i cannot not follow through!

As a keen follower of mostly British and Scandinavian crime dramas, I try at times to broaden my horizon and find out what other nationalities/countries have come to offer. Thanks to the site here plus Wikipedia, it is now easy to look around and see what is going on elsewhere, together with brief synopsis and comments.

As I liked Braquo and Engrenages, then Les témoins met my eye as well - and caught my attention from the very first moments. The producers are apparently the admirers of Scandinavian film noir, but this was not annoying, on the contrary - the concept, camera-work, music score and mood were catchy to follow, and the story "started working" at once, making you ponder on and over what could and would really happen. Leading characters and actors were distinct (particularly Thierry Lhermitte as former police chief Paul Maisonneuve and Marie Dompnier as police lieutenant Sandra Winckler) and the plot had interesting twists and turns, full of mysticism, but without interventions from supernatural forces; plus the nature in North-Eastern France is very different from we are used to see in French films, accentuating the similarities with Western Scandinavia and Northern England and Scotland.

All in all, a good series, and the number of episodes (6) is just right to obtain a versatile, yet not protracted and not discursive crime series.

The first season was good, but halfway through the second season I was screaming expletives at the female lead detective Sandra and her cohort Catherine. They takes matters into their own hands in such a stupid, careless, pigheaded fashion, I couldn't stand it. I do not suffer fools gladly.

I've just finished watching this series following its run on Channel 4 in the UK, and thoroughly enjoyed it. It has bags of atmosphere, some fabulous and very intense acting, and a great central character in the stunning Marie Dompnier. Certainly an actress to watch.

In addition, considering its 6 hour running time and novelistic structure, not to mention 2 intertwined mysteries to keep the viewer guessing, it really jogs along at quite a clip, with as much intrigue and incident per episode as many mini-series have in their entire running times.

There were a few plotting issues that lose it one point out of 10, but otherwise I thought this was as gripping as anything I've seen on TV for a while.