Les papillons noirs (TV Mini Series) Les Souvenirs d'Albert (2022) User Reviews

Starts strong

[dierregi · 7/10 · 25 December 2022]

From the very beginning one gets the feeling this will be a twisted, disturbing tale magnificently told. It starts with Adrien, the one-hit wonder writer of an autobiographical book, who's now lost inspiration and therefore accept to write the story of Albert, an old man who offers to pay some money for the job.

Albert is a single old man who lives sloppily in a dilapidated house in the middle of nowhere, that is actually that non-descriptive northern part of France bordering Belgium. Adrien's dad is indeed supposed to Belgian, but long departed in a mysterious way.

You get the feeling lots of secrets are up for disclosure, since Adrien's relationship with his dad's family is hostile/non-existent and his mum is a bit weird, but that's just the tip of the iceberg.

The english subtitled version is a much better translation than the English dubbed version

[silverton-37959 · 7/10 · 5 May 2023]

I took the advice of the reviewers on the main title page and set the stream for the original French language with English subtitles. If you view the English dubbed version with English subtitles, you'll see why the French language version is better. I can't imagine getting the impact of the series from the English dubbing. French is, after all, the language of clarity and the subtitled translation is faithful.

I wouldn't insult this fine series by comparing it to "Natural Born Killers", as some reviewers of the series as a whole have done. There simply is no comparison. Albert is a believable character whose telling of the story eventually reveals what Arrendt referred to as "the banality of evil", though it applies to this one old man who is telling his story to a writer, rather than to men in power who present their own view, knowing that it's false and intending to propagandize.