Excellent job contrasting the fascinating original French series with the windup, lifeless Amerobrit version. It's odd that you and I and presumably many thousands of other viewers saw immediately what made Le Bureau special but the writers, directors, and actors of The Agency didn't.
When I finished Le Bureau I thought, wow, that's really bleak. Everyone's paid a terrible price. Was that necessary? But now I think, this show is about war. Wars have to be fought, and if you're going to do a show about the ones who have to fight them, it's reasonable not to let the viewers off the hook at the end, even when you build in some humor and romance along the way. When you go to war you don't get the same happy ending as when you go to the movies.
Thanks so much, Paul! With regards to the ending of Le Bureau, I rather thought the punishment fit the crime, but that to me seems like the easy part. While I was watching it for the third time—once with English subtitles, once with French subtitles, and finally without subtitles—I was surprised at how moved I could still be by the tragedy of Guillaume's loss. As an aside, the director Jacques Audiard was was brought in solely for the series finale, and given complete creative control over the final two episodes. It's interesting to see some of his visual trademarks seep in, but I felt that the ending would have been the same, no matter what:
It was a scorched earth conclusion for everyone involved. Kind of like if, at the end of Casablanca, Rick looked on helplessly as Victor and Ilsa's escape plane went down in flames and Major Strasser killed Captain Renault. What I wonder is, do Rochant and Audiard believe there's a real fight going on? The answer could be different today than it was in 2020, or maybe not.
Excellent job contrasting the fascinating original French series with the windup, lifeless Amerobrit version. It's odd that you and I and presumably many thousands of other viewers saw immediately what made Le Bureau special but the writers, directors, and actors of The Agency didn't.
When I finished Le Bureau I thought, wow, that's really bleak. Everyone's paid a terrible price. Was that necessary? But now I think, this show is about war. Wars have to be fought, and if you're going to do a show about the ones who have to fight them, it's reasonable not to let the viewers off the hook at the end, even when you build in some humor and romance along the way. When you go to war you don't get the same happy ending as when you go to the movies.
Thanks so much, Paul! With regards to the ending of Le Bureau, I rather thought the punishment fit the crime, but that to me seems like the easy part. While I was watching it for the third time—once with English subtitles, once with French subtitles, and finally without subtitles—I was surprised at how moved I could still be by the tragedy of Guillaume's loss. As an aside, the director Jacques Audiard was was brought in solely for the series finale, and given complete creative control over the final two episodes. It's interesting to see some of his visual trademarks seep in, but I felt that the ending would have been the same, no matter what:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/17/arts/television/the-bureau-season-5-jacques-audiard.html
It was a scorched earth conclusion for everyone involved. Kind of like if, at the end of Casablanca, Rick looked on helplessly as Victor and Ilsa's escape plane went down in flames and Major Strasser killed Captain Renault. What I wonder is, do Rochant and Audiard believe there's a real fight going on? The answer could be different today than it was in 2020, or maybe not.