Paris, around the turn of the century, for the Belle Époque. But really bark, so beautiful, there is little here. The French President breaks down while having oral sex with his lover – and with him the French government. The French crime series begins with this fatal fellatio Paris Police 1900 and immediately sets the framework for everything that follows.
The Belle Époque is the time of long peace after the Franco-German war, in which Europe catches up again, gets up and tackles things. It is the time of new beginnings, world exhibitions, impressionism and cubism, the interpretation of dreams. Women free themselves from the corset and the idea of not being able to exercise a profession themselves. In Paris Police 1900 however, awakening and abyss are close together. The fine ladies meet for afternoon tea and finally inject heroin into their thighs.
Right-wing extremist, anti-Semitic forces threaten the Third French Republic
The young detective Antoine Jouin (Jérémie Laheurte) is supposed to solve a murder case. Two female corpses, their bodies precisely dismembered, are fished out of the Seine in suitcases; according to the clean cuts, it must have been someone from the trade – a doctor or a butcher. But Jouin struggles with police work, his corrupt colleague Fiersi cannot be trusted, and police superintendent Puybaraud hires Marguerite Steinheil (Evelyne Brochu), the late president’s lover, as a spy. After all, Police Prefect Louis Lépine (wonderfully grim: Marc Barbé), who is being brought out of retirement to restore order in the capital, first introduces telephones and company bicycles for the officers.
Outside the commissariat, right-wing extremist, anti-Semitic forces on the one hand and rising anarchists on the other are threatening the Third French Republic after the Dreyfus affair. The two Guérin brothers, in particular, take advantage of the trial of the Jewish officer Dreyfus by setting fire to a newspaper kiosk with the socialist newspaper Aurore with an article by a certain Émile Zola and instead distribute the propaganda paper L’Antijuif, the anti-Jew. In the evening they gather patriots, royalists and Bonapartists in a theater to swear them to the imminent overthrow – and finally, flanked by grim butchers, cut the throat of a living piglet – it is wearing a police uniform and is supposed to represent Dreyfus.
The French broadcaster Canal Plus paid a lot for the series
Paris Police 1900, realized by comic scenario writer Fabien Nury, cleverly interweaves real events and characters with fictitious ones. The self-confident Jeanne Chauvin (convincing: Eugénie Derouand), who introduces herself to the presidium as a lawyer and is scorned and ridiculed by the rioting policemen, is inspired by France’s first female lawyer. The Prefect of Police really existed, too, Dreyfus anyway. The French broadcaster Canal Plus paid a lot for the series, with more than two million euros per episode. Because of this, and because of the skillful interweaving of fiction and history books, many see Paris Police 1900 already as a French one Babylon Berlin. But the crime series is much darker, without much light and with music in a minor key.
Even if you like to watch how the different milieus and characters are connected – and how they have to work together in the end to save France – you still have to concentrate in order to be able to follow the different storylines. In addition, the characters deserve a bit more depth, especially Antoine Jouin remains pretty pale next to the self-confident lawyer. But maybe that will come – a second season is already in the works, Canal Plus is even planning four seasons.
Paris Police 1900, eight episodes, Wednesdays from 9.20 p.m. in double episodes on Sky Atlantic, as well as via Sky Ticket and Sky Q