Sentinelles

I nearly confounded this French series about modern war against ISIS with another one: COEURS NOIRS, taking place in Irak, when France still had troops over there. Both are excellent pictures, accurate depiction of what French troops have to deal with in terms of problems of all kinds. COEURS NOIRS focuses on Special Forces, and SENTINELLES more on the regular army, not the SP, and SENTINELLES takes place in Mali, not Irak. It doesn't hide anything, especially the hypocrisy of the high commandments, headquarters jerks who are totally disconnected from the ground. This is not a real advertisement to attract young men to enlist.... Except maybe the last scene, after the last episode ending credits, where one of the actors speaks to the camera and says that in the French army you have all kinds of origins: French, Arabs, Black...and also that maybe one day you'll have a Black - African descent - officer...."Social elevator", as we say in France. So this is a good series, but some actors speak like ghetto hoodlums...I am not that convinced that in the troops, soldiers speak this way. But after all why not?..... Good ending too, maybe a bit cheesy...But not a classic happy ending either. That's the most important for me.

One of the lessons to be drawn from this series (if it's an accurate reflection of reality) is to make sure your boots on the ground are adequately resourced. That Special Forces would take hours to arrive or a helicopter has to be approved through arcane procedures just adds to the difficulties of the small garrison in the Malian boondocks. Air-strike support seems to be non existent. That's not to say that better resources would have won the day. After all, look at how the Americans were booted out of Afghanistan.

The overall story was compelling enough for me to watch all the episodes over two days. The characters were clearly chosen for their diversity and to reflect modern France. Plot lines showed the frustrations and shenanigans needed to keep even a semblance of control. And various undercurrents and divisions between ethnic and religious groups were sharply drawn to the point of massacres and cruelty.

I enjoyed this very much and recommend it.