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CRIME OVERALL & POLICE ROUTINE
THE BROKENWOOD MYSTERIES — SEASONS 1 TO 3–2015-STILL RUNNING
Extremely entertaining; this series takes place in New Zealand, the antipode of France. Bang your feet in Paris on the ground and it goes directly to Auckland and resonates there within a few seconds. They don’t have kangaroos, nor giant pandas, but bats are New Zealand’s only native land mammals. There are two species of bats in New Zealand: the long-tailed bat and the lesser short-tailed bat. Māori folklore refer to bats as pekapeka and associate them with the mythical, night-flying bird, hōkioi, which foretells death or disaster.
Detective Inspector Mike Shepherd from Auckland is sent by a career accident to Brokenwood to work on a case and he decides to stay for ever, till death them parts, in Brokenwood to shepherd the flock of bats that he will wake up from their subterranean criminal hiding places. It is an extremely provincial place, and nearly all the cases have to do with the “secrets” of the place, though they are known by everyone except Shepherd who looks like a fool when he is confronted to some customary routine in this place and the gossiping heart of the city is of course the pub. Don’t hesitate and have a pint of something.
Not too many organized criminal activities. Not too much police corruption or too many police mistakes. Essentially very circumstantial crimes amplified by the old angers and resentments everyone has about and against everyone else. If you bitch at someone, you can be sure they will take the Mickey out of you, and you may even remain dead on the ground. The copper’s coppers will have to solve the problem and discover the secret that carried the crime. It is done slowly and most entertainingly.
Enjoy, but in France do not buy the standard edition for the French market. You can only get the French dubbed version or the English version with embedded French subtitles, as if subtitles were not an option, but a necessary tool for these antipodic French people who are so bad at English, they can’t even understand what is being said in the film. True enough, the New Zealand accent is really antipodic from standard English or Mid-Atlantic English.
Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU
