Corbucci (Le débarcadère des anges)

Part of the 2009 hard-boiled French TV anthology series Suite Noir, eight films which paired up-and-coming directors with works by some of France’s hottst crime novelists, the “Le débarcadère des anges” (which translates as “Fright of an Angel) episode was based on the novel of the same title, by French hotshot noirista Patrick Raynal, and directed by Brigitte Roüan.

Like the rest of the series, the episode leaned heavily on hard-boiled and noir tropes: seedy settings, convoluted plots, seductive babes, cynicism, corruption and murder, which makes it a sort of European companion to the USA’s Fallen Angels.

It followed young, studly and mixed race private investigator CORBUCCI who’s just opened a detective  agency in sunny Marseille (just up the coast from Nice, where the novel was set).

The son of a celebrated–but not always particularly well liked–cop, and boasting both Corsican and Ivorian blood, Corbucci knows it’s not going to be easy.

And he sure hasn’t landed a slam dunk for his first investigation. Sucked in by a gorgeous blonde from Geneva with come hither eyes,  the easy-going sleuth agrees to look into a suspicious death at a beauty clinic, of all places, and discovers a massive scam involving a network of corrupt politicians and police, organized crime, the French equivalent of Big Pharma (Le grande pharma?) and the French healthcare system (although, to be fair, at least they have one). Not bad for a first case–unless you plan on living long enough to solve it.

Fortunately, an old friend of his late father, still on the force, is is watching out for him, but even better–despite having died nineteen years ago–is the fact that his dear old dad is still hanging around, offering advice, unsolicited at first, to Corbucci, who needs all the help he can get.

Given Raynal’s politics, which tend to swing way left, perhaps it’s not a total shock that the book (and the show) took some subtle–and not so subtle–potshots at government incompetence and corruption, the commercialism of the police and everybody’s favourite target: racism. Corbucci, after all, is not just Corsican but Black as well. Not a popular mix in Nice (or Marseille).

The series first aired in France on prime time, and was popular with both critics and the public.