La commanderie

Directed by "Didier Le Pecheur" (surname!), you get a real glimpse of the gritty Middle Ages, including lavish doses of sex, not always of the "orthodox" kind, church hypocrisy and anti Semites, and of course, pillages, ignorance, superstition, fear of pestilence and consequently, of "the outside world", conservatism, and all of the (bad) things we know about the period. Not for the very religious or those who want a "sacred" view of the epoch.

Dark, very well filmed and with a tight & intelligent script, it will not be properly enjoyed with poor equipment due to it being shot in night scenes most of the time. The ambient/ "spirit of the times" is perfect, for instance, horse scenes, dresses, castle daily life, barbarians's mix of sheer cruelty and some sort of extreme religiosity, etc.

The Captain Thomas C. is a fine protagonist, even his allure and gait betray his "standing" in the series. Constance is pure beauty. Aygline is a perfect looser in that triangle, only seeing her walk clumsily or chatter is fun but also a bit sad. Géraud is fun to watch as the fun-loving priest, is a man that keeps more than one secret. So is Maitre Elias, a more enigmatic character, who although knows how to cure and read tongues, is nevertheless openly despised by the nobility (reminds me of the poor standing of some university teachers nowadays :(). Anjou is one of the big cast of "baddies" that, being extremely well chosen, succeed into making us believe they are really mean and would stop at nothing to get what they want. Besides being mean, another welcome trait. Hugues d'Avènes is even better, if looks could kill, he'd be a serial :). de Neuville carries his ugly role with grace. Frère Pons is fun as the "pragmatic church", follow torture rules by the book as if he were administering Mass :). Le Breton is the low end of the scale, wildly funny but of course, relentless. de Castenay has a deep, commanding voice that corresponds well to his important role. Paziol, the poor peasant that dared to answer back, is so well chosen one would hardly be surprised to see him walk in the street, him being so natural. Both Beautiful Brune and long suffering Barbe are very credible too. As well as the ladies in the brothel, the peasants, soldiers, priests...

Thanks to "morpion_1" from irreplaceable IMDb for sharing with us the structure of the series: the "big scene" that follows through the 8 chapters, and the individual episodes, dealing with one stock theme of the Middle Ages, like Serfdom, poverty and rebellion, barbarians at the gates, heretics, the Crusades, "God's divine will", religious fervour, specially by the peasants, church hierarchy's cynicism, military preparations, medicine, or the semblance of it, etc.

Worth watching, and highly entertaining even if you have only a moderate interest in historic fiction.

This series show great detail of medieval life together with a good intrigue. Facts and society are depicted quiet accurately, and you feel immersed in the XIV century Europe with all it's complexity. The scenario doesn't rely only on the usual fantasy theme we found in medieval stories and I found it particularly refreshing. In each of the 8 episodes you'll find a small story dealing with medieval aspect (Lords/serf relationship, inquisition, everyday quarrel between villagers etc etc) together with the continuation on the main action/scenario that last throughout the 8 episodes.

Most actors are very good, at the exception of the lead actor that sounds sometimes a bit off the line, but it doesn't diminish the total quality. Filming is good, not much fancy but the director does the job.

It's definitely a must see for everyone liking medieval or historical actions, only drawback you've got to speak french. As the excellent mini series "Les Roi maudits" (i'm talking about the old one from late 70's which is a real chef d'oeuvre of acting, and not the new one from 2000's which is crap in comparison) was worth the viewing, I honestly believe "La commanderie " deserve a thumb up.

There's good and bad things in this series but overall its not something I would recommend.

They have great costumes, weapons, sets and some good acting but its tainted by modern French... For example half the cast especially the 'hero' have a modern french accent and the other half seems to try to have a moderate accent to sound more medieval but in the end the whole thing sound awkward, they should have decided between one or the other. Also some characters act and think like a modern person would, sometimes it felt like I was watching a lame Kaamelot with no punch, humour or enjoyable characters...To be short there's a huge lack of authenticity despite visible efforts and there's too much sometimes lame side stories in the not so good main story.

There's nothing to see here that as not been done better many times, don't waste 8h on this unless you really have nothing better to watch...It seems like lots of French movies and t.v. shows are made for a growing population of empty zombies just like American ones.