2. • Spiral (Engrenages - French for "cogs", implying
the police and the lawyers are cogs in a machine
and they don’t necessarily have the power to
control it) is a French television police drama
series created by the TV production company
Son et Lumière. It is marketed in the English-
speaking world as Spiral. The first eight episodes
series started on Canal+ in France on 13
December 2005. It returned for a second series,
part funded by the BBC, of eight episodes on 12
May 2008 and a third series of twelve episodes
on 3 May 2010. Three more series have been
commissioned.
3. • Spiral has been a great success in France and a huge
export success, with sales to broadcasters in some 70
countries, among them Switzerland, Mexico, Japan,
Italy, Denmark, Finland, United Kingdom and Australia.
The series was first shown in the UK on BBC Four
during the summer of 2006. It was the channel's first
French-language drama series, attracting a modest but
loyal audience (around 200,000) and firm critical
approval. All three series have since been released on
DVD in the UK.
4. The basic premise - he series describes the
day-to-day work and life of six employees of
the judicial system in Paris: a police captain
and her two lieutenants, a judge, a
prosecutor and a lawyer.
5. • Police Captain Laure Berthaud. A skilled police officer
who leads an investigation group; she is known for her
energy and tenacity but also for her tough – not to say
borderline – methods. Devoted to her work, she is very
attached to her men and would do anything to protect
them when they make a mistake. While she is quite
successful with men, her private life is a mess and she
seems unable to build a lasting relationship. Like all the
characters in the series, she is not above ‘bending’ the
law to get results. Berthaud's feminist anti-hero, heads
a team of male cops who she loves and who exasperate
her, is tempered by actress Caroline Proust's
interpretation. "They wanted a female character who, if
she wants to sleep with a guy, says: 'I want you,' and if
it's finished just tells him it's over. It's quite a masculine
attitude and it makes the character very original. She's
not a slut, she's just a woman who obeys her desires in
a very simple way. I find that very interesting."
6. • Deputy Prosecutor Pierre Clément. A young magistrate
with a promising career, he believes in his profession and
in the integrity of justice. But his success and his
righteousness provoke the hostility of his superior, the
powerful Republic Prosecutor of Paris. He is close friends
with Captain Berthaud and Judge Roban but also, more
surprisingly, with Joséphine Karlsson. His dedictation to
the job has ruined his private life. He is divorced and has
failed to establish lasting relationships with women,
including Berthaud and Karlsson.
7. • Judge François Roban. An experienced juge
d'instruction, solitary and hardworking, he knows all
the tricks of his trade. Often reproached for his
coldness and even cruelty with suspects and
witnesses, he attaches a lot of importance to his
independence from the executive powers. But he is
aware that his job has nearly destroyed his life and the
people he loved.
• Lawyer Joséphine Karlsson. A clever, beautiful and
highly cynical young lawyer, she is extremely
ambitious and always looking for cases that will earn
her a maximum of fame and money. She finds it
exciting to defend monsters and does not hesitate to
cross or double-cross to get what she wants.
8. • Police Lieutenant Gilles "Gilou" Escoffier. Berthaud's long-
time team member: they are practically family. With methods
as borderline as his captain's, they often cover each other to
escape disciplinary inquiries. Having difficulties to endure the
toughness of his work, he has a long history of drug abuse
• Police Lieutenant Frédéric "Tintin" Fromentin. Responsible
and reasonable, good in proceedings, he is the stable element
of Berthaud's group. He generally disapproves of his
colleagues' methods and therefore is often torn between
straying into illegality and betraying his friends.
9. • The series is violent and fast-moving, taking in both the
police and the justice system, showing they work hand-
in-hand and how one can obstruct the other. If the
violence itself isn’t graphic, the depiction of its
aftermath and the autopsy scenes are. The mise-en-
scene of the Parisian streets is vividly conveyed to
create a threatening atmosphere at times with its filthy
streets, broken windows, graffiti-covered walls,
prostitutes, addicts and immigrant population who can
be portrayed as victims and criminals; at the same
time, we can see the upper echelons of the justice
system in Paris and see how corrupt it is and how it can
obstruct the police and lawyers doing their jobs. The
Paris of Spiral is presented as much more a city on the
brink riddled with class, sexual and ethnic tension.
10. • The show is rooted in a tradition of great policiers and film noirs - a term
invented by French critics - (eg Rififfi, Touchez Pas Au Grisbi, anything by
Melville, but is clearly in debt (as were its predecessors, to American shows
like Homicide: Life on the Street.
• Many typical tropes of the crime series are used – chases; interviews with
criminals (although these can be quite violent, unlike their British or
American counterparts; characters coming into conflict with their superiors;
loyalty to one’s colleagues; flawed characters whose private lives have been
sacrificed for the job; use of dark low-lit darkened mise-en-scene to imply
threat; the use of the steadicam to indicate tension. The fact that the
warmer colours are desaturated (as they are in scenes from Sherlock and
Homicide: Life on the Street, adds to the grim depiction of the city and
helps build pathetic fallacy.
11. • Does the success of shows like this, Wallander and The
Killing mean we are falling out of love with American crime
shows? Maybe, but the American equivalents of recent
years, like The Wire, have not been given a straight run on
terrestrial television. The Wire was shown on FX and when
it was repeated on BBC2, it was run late at night with one
episode a night over a period of months and if you miss one
episode, you miss quite a chunk of the story – it would be
like missing out a chapter of a book. Homicide: Life on the
Street was shown increasingly later throughout its run on
Channel 4 and was dropped before the last series. The same
channel shuffled around the later series of NYPD blue to
make room for sensationalistic ‘reality’ TV shows. Dexter,
the crime show about a forensic scientist who becomes a
serial killer to get rid of murderers is shown on a cable
channel in the UK. Meanwhile, the CSI franchise, though
less demanding, remains popular.
