Series of the Week: “La Trêve”
The City of Secrets
If someone says the summary of a miniseries is “there was a murder and the police investigate to find out the culprit”, probably everyone will think that there is nothing new about it. Well, in most cases it really is like that, but in the case of the Belgian miniseries “La Trêve”, everything seems very different from the commonplace.
The story is set in Heiderfeld in the Belgian Ardennes. Like every small town, little happens differently, and everyone knows each other. But when a young African football player is found dead, nothing else seems in place.
The case coincides with the arrival of Inspector Yoann Peeters (Yoann Blanc) to the city. He had already lived there as a teenager, and decided to return after his wife’s death, and a disastrous police operation under his command in Brussels.
Immediately taking over the reins of the case, Yoann shocks his peers with his rather aggressive manners, especially the young inspector Sebastian Drummer (Guillaume Kerbusch). Drummer, as well as the local police chief, Rudy Geeraerts (Jean-Henri Compere), know everybody in the city and consider them incapable of committing a crime.
But it soon turns out that the death of the young Driss Assani (Jérémy Zagba) was not suicide, as was thought, but a murder. More than that, as the investigation proceeds, more strange things are being added to the account of the unsuspecting citizens.
In that city where apparently nothing happened, it was discovered masochistic sado meetings, championship games bought by the Chinese mafia, orgies full of illicit drugs, cult of nazism, incestuous relationships, etc …
In the midst of all this, Peeters seeks to maintain his mental sanity, greatly shaken by past problems and drug use, with the help of his daughter Camille (Sophie Breyer) and old girlfriend Ines Buisson (Anne Coesens).
The city lives the expectation of the construction of a huge dam that will flood a good part of the region. This project is the apple of the eyes of Mayor Brigitte Fischer (Catherine Salee), mother of Zoé (Sophie Marshal) and Kevin (Thomas Mustin), and lover of police officer Geeraerts.
The most interesting aspect of “La Trêve” is that there seem to be no innocents. Everyone has something dirty to hide, and also has some connection with the strange death of the young Driss.
The conduction of the story is done in a very interesting way, with testimony of Yoann to a psychiatrist (Jasmina Douieb), who tries to discover the facts that happened in the city, with the direct participation of the policeman. Another curious aspect of the series is that the opening scene of each episode is a dream involving a character, but always with the participation of the young man killed.
The cast is made up of young and mature actors, mostly Belgian and little known outside of Europe. The direction of the series is of Matthieu Donck, who also participated in the creation of the script, besides Stéphane Bergmans and Benjamin D’Aoust. According to Donck, the idea for the series came from wanting to make cinema on television and writing the series they dreamed of watching. There is already a second season in production.
“La Trêve” is a product differentiated, either by the approach of the theme or by the choice of the actors and characters. For this reason, it is an interesting option, not only for its story, but also for the opportunity to watch a Belgian production, which is not very widely distributed in the Tupiniquins lands. The series is available on Netflix.
Original Title: “La Trêve”