Simenon’s humanistic commissioner enters the XXI. century

Jules Maigret, Maigret para los amigos, la familia y todo el mondo en general, se conviró en a Franco-Belgian and European answer to Anglo-Saxon detective archetypesopposite both Holmes or his fictional compatriot Poirot, as Sam Spade, Marlowe, and tough politicians and detectives hard boiled stadounidense.

Simenon’s creation begins to represent something of a “third way” in the genre, from which the primacy of deduction and intellectual games of the one or the violence and realism of the other sober humanistic determination. The predominance of psychology, the environment and the humanity of his characters, from which Maigret emerges reflexively, penetratingly and seemingly calmly, absorbs the atmosphere that surrounds him, knows the suspects, witnesses and victims, penetrates into his personal, moral and psychological problems, often identifies himself with the mentality of the ass, hasta succeeds in this way with the guilt, the culprit and the truth of each case. vein mask. Maigret never “deduces”, never “thinks”, according to the very thing he claims.

Simenon rode as the protagonist of a great team of collaborators, from which the Sanchopanzesque Janvier always stands out; I can realistically describe (sometimes somewhat staged) daily political work, traced with useful points of Maigret’s personal and known life (his wife, his friends, the loss of hija, his culinary tastes, his travels, his obsessions…) and in general, felt the basis of a distinctly European form of realizing political relationswho inherited the best and worst authors nordic noirwith characters like Martin Beck from the pioneers Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö (bien) or Wallander from Henning Mankell (normal), with the difference that the one who had Simenon in a few more pages so great that they take four minutes from those that usually overwhelm students.

More interesting is the peculiar Iberian iteration: Plinio de García Pavón, who transfers some of the methods and style of the Parisian Maigret to the Pueblar setting of Tomelloso, with remarkable result and personality. The broad shadow is also projected onto TV characters such as the German Commissar (1969-1976) – including the song Falco – or el español Commissar (1999-2009).

Quite a face

in the cinema Maigret knows no less than two different wordsAmong them Albert Préjean, who embodied him on three occasions; Charles Laughton, who hid him in one; Jean Gabin, among others, and considered by many to be the perfect Maigret; and so you have to connect with the main character Maigret and the death of the ambassadorDenis Podalydès, about the disaster starring Gerard Depardieu: sad, dark and disgusting Maigret (2022), signed Leconte en horas bajas. On TV, we saw adaptations not only by the French, but also by Canadians, Italians, British (surprising Rowan Atkinson), Canadians, Russians and even Japanese.

After the Leconte case, Pascal Bonitzer, who introduced you to the same Agatha Christie in France A great alibi (2008), something our old friends were very happy with (see series Little Assassinations of Agatha Christie in its different variants), he decided on something strange but effective: bringing Maigret into the early 2000smaintaining at the same time the spirit of the letter and the spirit of not only the character, right up to the novel Maigret and the Elderly (1960), based on the film.

Bonitzer knows Maigret does not work in the global, digital and virtual world, where questions and inquiries are conducted via Zoom and the Internet (the same thing that made Jean-Christophe Grange to become an author thrillers historical) because it is located on the last front.

The result is exemplary: an elegant, short and concise film like Simenon’s prosewhich practically use the same dialogue but add an ending coda to surprise people, creating a familiarity with the story that nevertheless falls flat and reminiscent of the ironic endings of the character’s other novels (e.g. Maigret and the Strange Vagabundo). Podalydès and Irène Jacob are the perfect Maigret marriage, but the pantalla is like two women, not exactly young: Anne Alvaro as the hieratic and irritating Jacotte and Dominique Reymond as the hieratic and stylish Princess de Vuynes.

Eventually, new and old Maigret a la vezcompletely satisfied, worthy of starting a new series with Podalydès et al.