Prequels are the current television series action in some categories it seems. ITV’s Endeavour (broadcast here in the U.S. on PBS) is prequel to the long running Inspector Morse series set in Oxford (1987 - 2000). As so many successful television detective series, it too is based on a novel series, by Colin Dexter.
Inspector Montalbano was a successful Italian television series starting in 1999, which began to be run on BBC 4 in 2012. Based on the book series Andrea Camilleri began in 1994, it features the mature Commissario Montalbano. Il giovane Montalbano is Inspector Montalbano’s prequel.*
Shot on location in Sicily, an Italian production, the prequel has made me that much more hungry for the mature Inspector Montalbano’s Vigata, the fictional coastal Sicilian city where he’s based. It’s fun to see the characters in first episodes operating without mobile phones or computers either professionally or personally, then, as the episodes continue, huge monitors begin to be seen on desks, and clunky, cordless phones in the car. By the conclusion of the 6th episode though, we’re still a long time away from databases and smart phones. In Vigata they rely on their knowledge of human nature, relationships, the community and their intelligence.
The liking for the series depends upon whether or not one can respect a congenital liar as the detective protagonist. The detective's traditional role is to re-balance the violated moral balance by finding out the murderer. Montalbano lies in the interest of doing that. But he lies much more to weasel out of unpleasant obligations. He lies to deceive his superiors. He lies to keep his girlfriends around -- or to make them go away. He lies to manipulate his colleagues, antagonists and superiors. He lies about bending or even ignoring the law as it stands.. He lies as a way of playing jokes on others – those jokes can turn around and bite his ass, as it deserves. This may or may not be the case, but to me the congenital lying appears as a deep cultural belief – this is Sicily – that justice, not truth, serves the moral universe's balance.
Salvo Montalbano so highly enjoys a perfect meal that at times he schemes to eat alone without a friend or lover’s talk diluting his gastronomic pleasure. When in the thrall of the chase he forgets even that he has a lover, just as he doesn’t stop to eat or sleep. Estranged from his father, his family is made up of his cohorts in the Vigata station, a set of colorful figures who become as much our old friends as they are Montalbano’s. Reflecting his creator’s professional theater and television experience, Montalbano is a literate fellow, who references writers and playwrights like Pirandello. These traits of Montalbano are already in play in the prequel series, in which we learn how he gets the house that is as much a character in the series as Vigata.
Il giovane Montalbano works a lot better than the BBC-Scotland Detective Zen series (2011), also from a novel series, begun in 1988, by English writer, Michael Dibdin.** Set in and around Rome (though Aurelio Zen is from Venice) featuring Rufus Sewell as the detective, the television series somehow managed to be boring.
One wonders whether Camilleri was inspired by Zen and Donna Leon’s successful Commissario Brunetti novels set in Venice, the first of which was published in 1992, to try a hyper local-based detective series of his own? Leon is a Usian, but has lived in Venice for many years. She writes her novels in English. For reasons only Leon knows, she has not permitted her books to be translated into Italian, though they are published in many other languages. German television has produced a series based on the Brunetti novels.
As novel series, set in three disparate regions of Italy, in the later books, they have in common a darkening vision and mood. In each series this loss of joy in the larger life of the communities policed is not due to the advancing age of the protagonists. The growing disgust for one's own country, satisfaction narrowing in focus to only one's personal and intimate connections, is caused by the evil contagion of global corporate infection, as they have merged with, and further enabled, the local versions of corruption and violence. This corruption is poisoning everything that was blessed about the Italian way of life -- even the fish, even the olive oil, even the cheese. We recognize the same process happening in our own country.
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* Neither Il giovane Montalbano nor the Inspector Montalbano series has shown up on Netflix.
** Now deceased, Michael Dibdin was a distant descendant of that 18th century music theater dominance, Charles Dibdin, who was contemporaneous with Thomas Jefferson and the Chevalier de Saint-George, the musical and military mulatto genius broken by Napoleon, as Napoleon broke all his officers of color, purging them from la Grande Armée.
4 comments:
The Young Montalbano is a worthy follow-up to the original Montalbano- it works! Though not so physically similar, the inspector and his deputies are convincing. His beach house is a character, as is the fictitious town. The beautiful Sicilian light and the stone of the buildings lends each episode an ambience. The actor is intelligent and sexy, his girlfriend is warm and gorgeous. What is not to like? He lives a simple but high quality life. Few possessions, a dusty old Fiat, but great food. The high production values show, and the incidental music is also very evocative. Sometimes, a complex plot needs a clunky plot twist to make it work, and follwing the subtitles means one loses a bit of detail, but it's good enough to make us persist. I'm hooked. I just caught up on the BBC iPlayer online, and love watching the Youtube clips interviewing the author, Andrea Camilleri. I hope they keep making these.
Considering when this comment appeared, so long after the entry, and how it is phrased, one might guess the poster is an astroturfer.
A shame then, upon Montalbano who would despise such behavior, particularly on his part.
Shame, shame, shame.
What the heck is the last comment from foxessa talking about? I'm glad I read that prior comment.
Signed me,
Nearly one year after the original post
"Astro Turfer" = on the internet someone who is connected with a work, production etc. who pretends to be a disinterested person who praises extravagantly this book, film, series, etc. with which s/he is connected, sometimes even paid to do so.
In ye olden days of the 19th century these sorts were called "fluffers" which got taken into the 20th century filmed porn industry -- those employed to make the primaries look as though they are really hot and ready.
How nice that you turn up over a year later to insult the owner of a blog, someone you don't even know, about something you know nothing about.
Of course, if total strangers give just a bit of background to themselves and why they are commenting suddenly out of nowhere then they aren't viewed with the suspicion they are astroturfers - fluffers, of course. But just turning up to scold, well, there ya go.
Have an enjoyable holiday from your labors.
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