Mystery in Translation (Crime TV Shows)

S2 E15 / Murder, Mystery, and . . . Subtitles! 

I've discovered two foreign language TV shows, Crimes of Passion and The Art of Crime, that I think mystery readers will enjoy.

🧩 Find out how the shows work in hints of Agatha Christie, Jurassic Park Syndrome, tension triangles, lost Old Masters, and the always popular tropes of crime in beautiful locations. 

📺 One is a mid-century modern mystery (think Mad Men, but with murder). The other is art history and mystery.

Transcript

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Welcome to Mystery Books Podcast where you’ll discover new mystery books and authors. I’m USA Today bestselling mystery author Sara Rosett. I’m also a bookworm who specialties in the mystery genre. I love sharing my favorite mystery discoveries  from classic golden age novels to contemporary cozies. This is Season two, Episode four, and it's all about two foreign language mystery TV shows, Crimes of Passion. In the Art of Crime. We usually talk about mystery books, but I like to mix it up a bit and occasionally talk about mystery TV and movies.

Last season, in episode seven, I talked about The Mallorca Files, and this season, I want to tell you about two new mystery TV discoveries I've made. So I'll take them one at a time, and I'll give you a quick overview and then tell you about the themes and tropes of each one. And then I'll tell you who I would recommend the series to, like which type of viewer it might interest. And if you think, "I'm not really interested in mystery television," I would encourage you to hang on and keep listening, because there are definite Agatha Christie influences in one of these and some interesting twist on some tropes that I hadn't seen before. They just made me think about mystery and how you could structure a mystery differently. And I think that they would be intriguing if you enjoy traditional mysteries. And one quick caveat, my books are definitely G-rated, and these TV shows, I would say, are more in the PG category.

But first, let's talk about watching TV shows with subtitles. So I've heard other people talking about, oh, they watched this foreign language show with subtitles, and I just didn't think that I would like that. I just didn't try it. But once I had watched all the shows that interested me in English, I had to expand my search. Looked around, and I was like, "Oh, this show looks interesting." I watched  Crimes of Passion first. What I realized was that after I was a little bit into the episode, I didn't really notice that I was reading and matching the word to the image. I hardly notice it at all. And now I find it really intriguing to watch how the delivery of a line impacts the actual words. So the words will be simple. One or two words, but the actors can inject such a range of emotions and subtext to just a single word or two, so I find that that very interesting as a writer. All right.

So first, let's talk about Crimes of Passion. It is currently on Amazon Prime. As I'm recording this in July of 2021. This will probably go out a little bit later, so I hope that it's still on Prime. When this comes out, it's on Prime. You can watch the first season for free currently. Otherwise you have to get a subscription to PBS Masterpiece. And it is in Swedish with English subtitles. Crimes of Passion, it's a collective title of the six feature length films; the first one was originally released in 2013. And they came out in Sweden first, and then according to Wikipedia, the BBC bought the British Broadcasting rights and premiered them in 2014 there. And now they're streaming online, so they're probably much more widely available now.

Here is the blurb from the Amazon and product page for the DVD. It's a little better explanation than the ones on the Amazon Prime page. “Crimes of Passion is a period piece set in 1950 Sweden. The six part series follows amateur Detective Puck, her fiancé Eje, and the head of the murder commission from Stockholm Christer, as they attempt to uncover the murderous actions that inhabit their beautiful surrounding.”

And as you can tell from my hesitation there, I'm trying to pronounce these names as they were pronounced in the TV shows, and I apologize in advance if I get them wrong. I am a Texan, grew up in Texas, and so this is my attempt at pronouncing Swedish and French names, so that's the best I can do. And hopefully I will get a little smoother as we go along.

The first episode of Crimes of Passion is called "Death of a Loved One," and here is a quick episode summary. "Puck, a doctrinal student in literature, accepts the invitation of her advisor and travels to an island to celebrate Midsummer." So there are definite And Then There Were None vibes with this episode.

The advisors there with his wife, along with several students, including another history student, Eje. And the mutual attraction between Puck and Eje is very obvious. Also in this series, it begins and you know right away that there are some tensions and some undercurrents between the people that are there at the party. And the way it is filmed, it's very atmospheric. It's got this beautiful coastline, but then it's got all these evergreens and a very thick forest; it's kind of dark and creepy. So if you were into that, you'll like those scenes.

One of the guests is murdered and Puck and Eje leave the island and contact an old friend of Eje's, Christer who was the head of the Swedish Homicide Investigation Division. The three return, and then things become complicated on two fronts. The murder investigation, there's clues, suspects, there's more deaths, of course. They end up stranded on the island; I won't go into how that happens. So things get worse there.

And then they're also complicated on the relationship front, because there is an attraction between Puck and Christer. Puck is interested in crime, and Christer even tells her one time, "You think like a cop." But you can tell that, even when he first appears on screen, two women are walking by and he gives them a long, flirty look. You know from the beginning that he's a player, and his actions bear that out throughout the episode.

The themes of this episode: I think the main theme is love. And thinking back over it, after it's over, you can see that it explores this wide range of different kinds and types of love. There's the attraction between Puck and Eje. There's falling in love, because they're gradually realizing that they both like each other. And then there's love (or not) in a marriage. And then there's unrequited love. And then also you get the flip side of it: when love goes bad, like when there's jealousy and anger. That's the main theme, I think in this. All right.

Tropes, So this has the Isolated Location trope, which is very common in this type of mystery. But this one take it up a notch, because not only are you getting a little country house somewhere isolated because of weather or something. You're actually on an island, so you are physically cut off from everyone else. So Agatha Christie used this in And Then There Were None. Classic isolation trope.

Then you've got the Cast of Varied Characters. You have the professor who invited his doctrinal students to come to the island. You've got his wife who seems to be the perfect homemaker. You've got a temperamental writer with writer's block,. And you've got a blonde bombshell. There's a couple of other characters, but I think those are like the ones that stand out the most that are the most in a way, what you would say stereotypical. But as you watch the show, you realize there's more layers to each of those characters than just that surface layer.

Another Trope, in this is the Jurassic Park Syndrome is what I'm thinking of it as. You arrive and everything seems to be a paradise. I think that's the second time I said the word "seems"; it seems to be beautiful in a paradise. But as the story goes on, everything disintegrates into chaos. And it's very interesting looking at the visuals of this. When they arrive on the island, it's very bright and sunny. There's the party, and pretty much everybody is dressed in white, light colors. And then as the story goes on and things get darker and darker. And at the final scene, I guess the next to last scene, it's night and everything is very blue. And it's the tonal differences show you the transition from "happy and optimistic and everything's great" to "oh, my goodness, this is horrible." And things have disintegrated to a horrible point. But the story doesn't end on that note, and I like things that have a positive kind of upbeat tone. And even though this has, it explores these darker themes, it does end on a happy note. And I noticed when I watched it, I rewatched it before I recorded this episode, and I noticed that the last scene is also light and bright and the main characters are again wearing white. And I just thought that was very interesting, a visual way to show the shifts and tone in the story.

All right, let's see; we have a couple more tropes. This one has the Disappearing Body trope. This is one of my favorite tropes to write, and I've used it in quite a few books. I was plotting a book the other day, and I thought, "No, I better not do that because I just did that." It makes things more complex. And I like it because it gives you a little bit different angle than just find the body, interview the suspects, pursue the clues, find the red herrings, and sort those out. I like this because it adds an extra layer of complexity to the story. So in this episode, Puck finds the body in the woods. She goes to get help. And Eje and her leave the island and return with Christer. But no one else saw the body but Puck. And then when it disappears, of course, she is suspected; that just gives a different layer. So then you have to sort out: is she telling the truth? Is she lying? She has to convince the homicide investigator that she did see what she saw and that the body has just been hidden. And so you have to sort that out. And then also deal with the clues and the undercurrents and the subtext that's going on between all the people in the island and then the romantic elements that are in play. So a lot going on in this episode.

Then the last trope we have that I'm going to talk about is the Sleuthing Couple. Puck is really brainy and she's interested in crime. She's writing her thesis on "Murderers in the Modern Novel." Now the person she's interested in, Eje, is very intelligent too. But he's a doctoral student of history, and his thesis is on medieval Church murals in Sweden. And I just think that sums them up. She's intellectual, but she's very interested in crime and mystery and murder. And he's intellectual, but his interest is much softer, kind of more muted. That's not to say he's wimpy. He's actually, of the pair, I would say he's the physical one, the muscle. He fixes the boat; he finds a way to bring the police. In a way, their relationship echoes Agatha Christie's, Tommy and Tuppence because they had sort of the same dynamic going on.

There's a really nice scene that sums up their relationship. They're on the way to the dock to go swimming and Eje says he believes that history binds them altogether. And Puck says that's what she lectures on. She says, you have to understand a person's actions or to understand a person's actions, you have to look to their past. And he quotes a Swedish poet. He quotes the first couple of lines, and then she finishes off the quote. It's about how a man who has a secret but isn't aware of it, how that knowledge can drive someone to lose their life and lose their mind. And so it's it's a very sweet moment, the way it's filmed. You can tell that there's a definite connection with them. And I thought it summarized their relationship really well, and how they're going to work together to solve this crime and more in the future. I also liked the portrayal of their relationship. They were in love, but it's a realistic portrayal of being in love. They enjoy being together, they have disagreements and fights, but they work it out. And I just enjoyed that aspect of their relationship.

While we're on the subject of love, I have to mention the kind of sort of Love Triangle between Puck, Eje and Christer. It's not really a love triangle, because you can tell that Eje and Puck are in love and they are going to be together. That's kind of the direction the series is going. But Christer, with him added to the mix, there's a tension between him and Puck. And so that adds a really interesting twist on the Love Triangle trope. Because normally you have three people and you're trying to figure out who. Usually in a traditional mystery or a cozy mystery, it's who the woman is going to choose. She's torn between these two extremes, and the men have very different characteristics. And that's the set up for this; it's very similar to that. But because you know that, you can sense that Puck and Eje are going to be together, and their love is very strong. Then you throw in Christer. And Puck has an intellectual kind of meeting of the minds with him. They're often on the same wavelength. She often finds the clue or picks things up. She provides information to the investigation, and he appreciates that. And he sees in her that she is on the same wavelength as he is. So it's not really a love triangle; it's more of a tension triangle, I guess you could say. It's just a different twist on a love triangle, and I found that intriguing to watch and see how it played out.

The Story Behind the Story section, These are based on books from crime author Maria Lang, who was called the "Swedish Agatha Christie." Some of the books have been translated into English, and you can find a few of them in ebook and print. You have to kind of search for them, but there are some of them available; I never found this story. It looks like a lot of these episodes are very closely adapted from her books. Some adaptations take basically the character's names and that's all. And then they kind of go off in another direction. But when I read the descriptions of some of the books, the episodes of this show sounded very similar. So if you can find the books, then they would probably be very close to this. All right.

So who would enjoy this series? I would say if you enjoy classic mysteries, you'll like it. If you enjoy 1950 settings, like if you enjoyed the visuals of Madmen, you'll really like this. And they did a great job with the clothing and the makeup and the hair, it really did look like another era. Mid-century modern mystery basically is what this is. If you like couple husband and wife sleuthing teams, you'll enjoy it. And if you like a mystery that's not always light and happy, and it's got a little more dark notes than, say, like maybe a Hallmark mystery would, this one's very atmospheric and has some little lower notes in it. But Puck always keeps things light and there is humor in it as well. All right. So that is Crimes of Passion.

And now let's talk about The Art of Crime. The Art of Crime is currently on Amazon Prime. As I'm recording this season, one is free. If you want to watch the rest of it, you can subscribe to MHz Choice. And it is in French with English subtitles. The first season came out in France in 2017, and there are now four seasons of this with the fifth one in the works.

Here's the blurb. He's clueless about art and she's phobic without him. But together, Captain Verlay and Florence must solve a high profile art crime in the heart of Paris.

So this is a complete change. We're going from a historical mystery to modern day. We had a sleuthing pair who were more amateur sleuths in Crimes of Passion. And in this series we have a police officer who was assigned to the Art Crime Unit and his consultant is Florence. So it's a little bit different, dynamic, different setup. This setup is very common, though. The police officer who's assisted with a consultant is very common. Castle, the Mentalist. There's lots of shows like this. But I think what makes this show interesting is the characters themselves and then the art world setting.

So the first episode is called "A Natural Beauty." And here's the very, very short and succinct blurb. "The theft of an obscure Renaissance portrait uncovers a sensational 15th century secret." Okay. I can't believe I actually read that in one go without messing up all those S sounds.

Themes for this one. This series is so rich in themes. There's layers and symbolism. And I think part of that is related to using the art. Because there's so much in art that you can dig into in paintings and sculpture, and things that you can learn and infer from what you know about the artist and the artwork. So I really enjoyed that in this series. There's art in each case that echoes what's going on in the character's lives and relationships.

So in the first episode, one of the main themes is betrayal. You find out about a betrayal in DaVinci's life because that's the artwork that they're looking at. But then you also see that Florence is experiencing a betrayal in her life. And then ultimately, when the crime is solved, you see that one person betrayed another in committing the crime. So it's very interesting and very layered.

There's another theme in this episode about jealousy in the murder case; that's one of the motives for the murder. And then there's also the theme of being alone that plays out in a couple of ways. Davinci, they describe how he was alone. He I don't want to give away the parts of the show that are the clues and stuff, but he experienced a betrayal and was alone. And Florence experiences a betrayal, and she's alone. And even one of the characters says to her that she's going to end up alone and bitter. And she's single; she's a working woman, but she doesn't have a long term relationship with anyone. She's had relationships in the past, but she's not with anyone now. And so that's a theme for her. And then for Captain Verlay, he's going through a divorce. So all of the elements, there's all these multilayered aspects of being alone, and they just weave it all together very well.

Okay. So let's look at tropes. This, of course, has the Odd Couple pairing. You've got the dumb cop compared with the intellectual. But they went beyond that, and they added all these extra layers. Lots of layers in this show. So Verlay is blue collar; Florence is sophisticated and intellectual.

There's a trope called the "Grumpy Sunshine" trope. And I would think of this more as like the Eeyore/Pollyanna trope, where Verlay is never happy. He's described as boorish and kind of like a primate; like he's primitive. And Florence is very sophisticated. And she's happy; she's always smiling. She does have her struggles, but overall, her demeanor is optimistic. And she loves everything about art, and she loves all kinds of art. And it doesn't matter; it's not like she has a favorite type. In the other episode that I've watched, all the art is very different, but she enjoys each piece and type of art for what it is. And that's very different from Captain Verlay.

And then you have the other contrast between them is that he believes in police work. He will solve the case. He will follow the clues. He will solve it the old fashioned way. Florence is very intuitive. There is an aspect of this. I believe it's called "magical realism". Because in her head, she imagines she's talking to the painters. And so she always has this kind of internal dialogue going on with them. And they visualize that with bringing in someone, an actor to play DaVinci. And she has a conversation with him. And it's often these conversations she's having her head that give her a breakthrough about the case, a certain clue or a certain thing that's off or odd, or that will point them in the right direction.

Then another way that they are opposite is physicality. Verlay has a physicality about him. He's big and has big shoulders. And when he's interviewing suspects, he rarely sits across the table from them; he's up, kind of leaning over them, kind of looming. He's the one always doing the chase scenes and breaking down doors, very aggressive. Then you've got Florence, who is much more in her head. She's much more intellectual, much more thinking about things. But she has a weakness that is a psychological weakness, which is perfect for her character because she's so much about thinking. She struggles with vertigo, and it's a psychological thing. There's nothing physically wrong; there's no medicine she can take; there's nothing she can do. She has these episodes where she experiences vertigo. The writers have had great fun in helping her, providing a way for her to get through this. And it involves Captain Verlay. So I won't spoil it for you, but it is a very entertaining sequence of the series.

I also thought this series did a great job of visually showing the differences between Verlay and Florence. Verlay is always wearing plain shirt, jeans, tennis shoes; very simple, unornamented clothes. Florence is always in, she has all these velvet jackets and rich colors. And she wears scarves and really flowing things are very colorful. He's very monochrome. She's very colorful in what she wears. And then if they are together and they're both in colors, they're often in contrasting colors. She's wearing red and he's wearing blue. I thought that was an interesting visual to reinforce their oppositeness. Is that a word? I guess we'll go with it.

Another trope in this is the trope of the Lost Masterpiece. This revolves around missing DaVinci. I won't spoil it, but it's done in a different way. It's not that they just found a missing DaVinci and somebody wants it. It's more to it than that. And this series is complex; the cases are very complex. The episodes are actually two parts. They really can explore things in depth. And sometimes, I will admit, the cases do get a little far fetched, but I'm willing to go there. Willing to suspend my disbelief because I'm enjoying the characters and also the exploration of the art. Because you always learn about the art, and you learn about the stories behind the art, as well as the stories behind the artist and their lives. I'm willing to suspend a little disbelief for that.

Another trope in this is Crime in Beautiful Locations. So it begins in a chateau, and it's just beautiful scenery. There's other scenes in Paris, in The Louvre. There's scenes... go to a beautiful gala at the end of the show. The juxtaposition of death in such beautiful locations, like a gorgeous chateau or in the halls of the Louvre, is very striking.

Who would I recommend this show to? I would say that if you enjoy travel. Or if you're missing travel because we're still in the midst of COVID and travel restrictions are out there still now. But if you're missing that, if you enjoy travel, if you enjoy art, this would be a show you'd really enjoy. There's actually a French Wikipedia page about this TV show and you can use Google Translate to read it in English or your language. And it lists out what the case is for that episode, and then it shows you the art and links to the art so you can look at the original artworks themselves that the shows are based on.

My question for you this week is, have you watched any foreign language mystery TV? And do you have any recommendations?

If you have watched The Art of Crime, I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on how they have spun out the "will they or won't they" trope between Captain Verlay and Florence. They're obviously trying to keep that going as long as possible. And because Florence is such an engaging character and played by such a wonderful actress, the show continues to be interesting and funny. But I do wonder if there comes a point where the audience will begin to be frustrated with the continual extension of that spinning of the relationship out.

Obviously they are trying to avoid the moon lighting scenario where you get the characters together and then the ratings tank. That's had a huge impact on screenwriters, and I feel like it's one of those taboo things. Never get the characters together is kind of the accepted philosophy. And I'm trying to think of shows where the characters did get together and the shows were still successful. One of them that comes to mind is Burn Notice. Those characters Mike and Fiona were on again, off again, and I guess that's a different variation of "will they or won't they?" But if you can think of any others where the characters did get together and establish a romantic relationship, and then the series continued on, let me know. I'm collecting those.

You can find me on Instagram at @SaraRosett. with no H on Sara and no E on Rosett. Or you can leave a comment on the show notes for this episode, which will be at SaraRosett.Com/foreign. I would love to hear any recommendations you have.

And if you enjoy a book set in Paris, you might like a third book On The Run series; it's called Deceptive. And I'll give you a short excerpt here to give you a taste of the book. So this is Elizabeth Klett narrating Deceptive.

(Excerpt of Deceptive)

That was Elizabeth Klett narrating Deceptive, the third book in my On The Run series. I hope you've enjoyed this podcast, and I hope it's giving you some possibilities for entertainment, mystery related entertainment. If you've enjoyed it, I hope you'll tell a fellow mystery reader about it. Thanks for listening, and I'll see you next time.