Les Misérables -- 2000 French TV miniseries -- Part 2

[yakalskovich]

• This miniseries has time to start the episode with Javert walking down an entire official-looking staircase, hat under his arm, saying nothing.
• The Thénardiers are mean, but not bizarre. The Dickensian impression is just musical canon, it seems.
• Now Javert knows who 'Monsieur Madeleine' is, he addresses him as 'tu', not 'vous'.
• He goes out of his way to tell Fantine that Cosette isn't coming to her, and then she dies, and Valjean promises to fetch her regardless and jumps out of a window, and Javert shoots at him and hits a bell -- oh what drama! And baying hounds follow him, with Javert running among them. Where did they get so many dobermanns so fast?
• And during the chase, Javert has the time to say something philosophical.
• Er what? They think he is hiding in the burning hay??
• He was hiding in that burning place, too.
• Ahh, here is Sister Simplice lying.
• She says 'Les Misérables' too -- title drop number two!
• Heh Montfermeil is out of Javert's jurisdiction so he has to go to Paris to ask for permission to try and catch Valjean -- here is the 'Dipferlscheisser' that we know and love!
• Wow serious sword you have there in that stick, Thénardier! So he really means to kill Valjean for his money. But Valjean and Cosette are gone. So, the second turn in the bagne is missing here.-
• It's the same market stall where Fantine sold her hair, and the same nasty old man -- but why is Thénardier already there and has found them? Now, threats! Knives!
• And here is Javert, arresting Thénardier for selling Cosette to Valjean and aiding and abetting a fugitive.
• People making coffins, and Gavroche delivers them. He's not ten, though; he must be fourteen at least. He looks more like the fellow on the icons of Milli!Gavroche. His voice is already breaking. And he lives in somebody's carriages. And he says 'Les Misérables' as well. Title drop after title drop.
• And Javert finds him in the Gorbeau tenement almost immediately and sends some scruffy spy. Why is he carrying her, though? She could walk!
• Javert. Coat, hat, hair. Skulking.
• So many decrepit historical buildings to use as locations!
• Javert, with a city map, following them on foot while they scale a wall! Action now!
• Javert needs a search warrant for the convent, hence -- he has to stay outside!
• Marius! Dark and broody and introduces as 'baron'. Six years ago -- but Gavroche is still the same. And why are Cosette's drawings still on the wall? So that is how we do the passage of time this time.
  
• That convent is a bit bizarre. Draw fifty crosses on the chapel floor with her tongue as punishment? Wut?
• It seems Valjean doesn't have the silver candlesticks any more, it seems.
• Valjean speaks up to the prefect of the police, that is, the top cop of all France? That's not really sensible.
• And here is Javert, in his leather badass longcoat, hat under his arm, walking up the staircase in the convent.
• And the abbess tells Javert that his justice system is faulty! And then, she calls a sister we don't see to flagellate her. Yep, definitely a slightly bizarre convent here.
• Ragged Thénardiers and ageless Gavroche, whom they don't seem to know, moving into the Gorbeau tenement. Is there only one tenement in all of Paris or what?
• And Éponine falls in love with tall!dark!smouldering Marius at once!
• Laughing strictly forbidden! Echoes of 'Name of the Rose' here; or maybe Eco was echoing Hugo there...
• Javert! With short and very receding hair, lurking around the university looking for sedition among the students. He still has his leather badass longcoat, though. And now he hides behind a newspaper in the Café Musain.
• They sing the Marseillaise -- that must have been terribly illegal! And yes, here is Javert, looking displeased. And all the students, but we don't get to learn their names. Yet.
  
• And now, love at first sight between Marius and Cosette -- and yes, she leaves him her handkerchief! How terribly 19th century.
• A chained group of prisoners in red, and the populace is all excited. They wear odd tall-ish hats, too.  And Cosette calls them 'beasts'.
• Marius sucks at logical deduction. Ursule indeed!
• Marius does his own washing-up, though. One point in his favour! He is useful, not only dark and smouldering.
  
• Favre? Leblanc? What's up with all these names?
• 'Ces gens sont des monstres' -- yep, Marius, getting better at logical deduction when you have the correct result right before your nose.

I like. Part three and four tomorrow.-