L'île aux trente cercueils

Adapted from the wonderful Maurice Leblanc's novel,it is a very exciting if a bit slow-moving miniseries.Claude Jade,whom Truffaut's lovers know quite well (She was the heroine of the Antoine Doinel Saga ) ,is well cast as Veronique,a young woman who finds back her son and her father on a Breton Island and gets involved in a very strange story,including old ceremonies,druids ,murders ,human sacrifices ....All that a contemporary dud such as "Broceliande" intended to do (and dismally failed) magnificently works here.As Veronique becomes more and more alone,the suspense and the terror rise,and grab the audience till the last episode.

Spoiler:Leblanc's novel was faithfully transferred to the TV screen,with only a big difference:Arsene Lupin,who intervenes only at the end of the book anyway,is completely absent.Some people complained about it at the time.But as "and then there were none" did not need any Hercule Poirot, this Leblanc gem could do without him.

Seen today ,some aspects of the miniseries may seem obsolete,old-fashioned , its performances may seem theatrical ,but it's much superior to the remake which the French TV is currently broadcasting .

Maurice Cravenne's directing may seem flat , the action slow-moving ,but it inspires its stressful atmosphere ; he only directed one theatrically-released movie, "la danse de mort" ,but it's a black gem ,featuring a brilliant Erich Von Stroheim.

The 2022 version enjoys more important means than the 1979 one, but it fails totally to convince; Viriginie Le Doyen's island (l'île d'Ouessant) is a nice place to be;it has nothing to do with Veronique's gloomy islet where the sound of the sea and the howling wind create a frightening atmosphere.

Leblanc's novel was published in 1919 and it depicted horrible scenes in a world gone mad (1917) ;deprived of its historical context, his utterly implausible tale does not make sense anymore.

Hence the failure of the "modernized " screenplay ; transferring a Gothic novel into a trite amour fou drama was a risky move;doing so with dumb red herrings,gore, far-fetched plot and wasted actors was bound to disappoint the audience .Lupin or not Lupin.