The past week has seen one previously experienced 3D film experienced on 3D TV and one 3D film which was viewed last year as 2D now also seen as 3D on TV. There was one new film State of Grace in the sense that I have a vague memory of having seen before and which because of its subject I will review together with the first three episodes of season 5 Sopranos. I will however begin with a new 10 part Italian Detective Drama Inspector Montalbano which although set in Sicily there has only been a momentary reference of the Mafia and which I rate alongside the Swedish Wallander, the French Maigret and the Dutch Van der Valk, Hercule Poirot from Belgium and Bergerac from the Channel Island Jersey,
Montalbano is also an individualist like the others who demands of his subordinates but protects and furthers their situations. As with all similar characters his private life has its ups and downs and is affected but his work as well as his inclination to be a law unto himself,
He has a long term relationship with a woman who lives on the mainland and which he and his colleagues refer as Italy, regarding Sicily as separate, and the couple visit each other by plane when they can and which appears not often given they both have demanding occupations. They both find the situation has disadvantages as well as advantages with his work affecting their relationship when she makes a special visit and then she questions if she is more than a sex object. A child encountered in the first episode has a significant affect on their relationship and the bond that been established over the greater part of a decade.
In the first episode a man is shot on a ship while at sea I cannot remember just within or outside Italian waters with one ship involved Italian but the man a citizen of a North African country. Montalbano is happy for the case to pass to others while he concentrates on the murder of businessman. I sensed the wife was guilty at the outset although she blames the man’s alleged mistress. The wife has an alibi that she left for a visit early that day and returned on hearing the news on In fact Montalbano proves that although the wife said she left early to visit she had never arrived and he then establishes that she got off the bus and got on another returning home, killed the husband and then left. This emerges later in the episode
Understandably Montalbano first thought is to find the mistress and visits the enclave of fellow countrymen and only later would have noted that she was of the same nationality as the man murdered at sea and of the country where was a dispute over responsibility. Visiting the enclave he makes contact with an old woman friend of the alleged mistress who has a son and both are said to have gone to stay with a friend of the old woman.
However the young woman and her son do not arrive at the friend and her home is found ransacked. The old woman shows where the alleged mistress had hidden her bank book which contained over 100 million lire which puts the series before 1999 when the euro came in and when such an amount was worth £50000, still a lot of money but not fortune. Although for someone with the background and living conditions of the young woman it was.
I say alleged mistress because her relationship with the business man is never clarified to my satisfaction
Montalbano also come across some people complaining about a young boy stealing snacks crisps and chocolate from children in a one neighbourhood on his way to and from seeing the old woman. This is also to have significance.
After placing information on the media a man comes forward to say he had seen the woman in a car at a bus stop arguing with a man. He had considered approaching but had refrained although he made a note of the vehicle registration number. Apparently in Italy at that time it was difficult getting an immediate trace even for the police. Here any police officer can get an immediate trace through their onboard vehicle computer. In Italy it could take days if not weeks so Montalbano has to pull strings to get a response which he then finds the information is blocked because of national security reasons.
His female friend is spending a few days with him. And it is something which she says which makes him realise there is a connection between the woman is seen in the car but without the boy, and the boy stealing the food. His female friend accompanies and it she who is able to befriend the boy when he is found. They care for the boy and the child brings out the maternal feelings in the woman who is getting no younger and where she has reconciled with difficulty that for various reasons Montalbano is not going to marry her. However his position changes when he too befriends the boy who reciprocates the affection. It is the boy who explains that when his mother saw the man in the car driving up she told the boy to run into the adjacent field and hide. Then the boy recognises the mystery man who was killed on the boat. It is her mother’s brother!
Montalbano is able to work out from other inquires that the brother was a drug smuggler and that the businessman was a front operation for the smuggling. This is why the office was more of a flat with a bed than an office. This suggest that the young woman was his mistress but not conclusively because the money appears to have originated from the drug dealing, although again there are issues which also makes this unclear,
When she had seen the news of the death of her brother she had gone immediately to see the businessman at his home. I am not sure of the sequence of events but I think that she made two visits. The wife who knew about a relationship between the young woman and her husband, but not his involvement in the drug smuggling had been incensed to find the woman was in her home although it may have been coincidental and she had planned to kill him that very morning and blame the mistress. What is certain is that the young woman had been in that flat in the morning as her scent and found the body and panicked and feared for her life thinking it was the same killer who had killed her brother.
She had not taken the bank book with her in case she was caught and the money taken from her. It as all that she could give to her son with Montalbano fearing she was now dead. In order to smoke the villain out, now that he had been refused the known information about him from the car registration he put out a media story that the boy was missing having arranged for the boy to placed with the relatives of a policeman in the country. He tells his female friend to leave and the old woman to go and stay with her friends. Unfortunately before he can communicate this to old woman she leaves to check that the boy has not returned home. She is murdered but has not given up the location of the bank book. Montalbano takes the book to the Public Notary for its safekeeping in order that it should become part of his mother’s estate. Unfortunately this cannot happen until a body is found.
Montalbano uses further deceptions to bring the security forces to his door and he arranged for a camera to be place secretly. As anticipated a senior official arrives who admit their complicity in the affair aiding another government but unaware the intention was to eliminate witnesses. The assassin had already returned to the home country. Montalbano then uses the video tape to blackmail the official to finding the body. He breaks the man’s glasses so that he cannot be immediately followed and stopped before taking the tape into the safe keeping at his office. Fortunately the threat of public exposure works and an unrecognisable body is found washed up on the shore but here are personal effects which identify the woman as the boy’s mother. It is presumed that this is not the real body but a fix to ensure that the boy inherits his mother’s estate. I say fortunately because when he checks the tape he founds that he did not start the camera!
His woman friend reveals her frustration at not being married and not having children is affected by the boy who has reciprocated their affection and says he wants to be with them. The programme ends with impression that the couple are to marry and adopt the boy.
It is during the second episode yesterday evening that Montalbano goes to visit the boy who appears to be afraid of him. The boy explains that he is very happy in his new home especially as he has ”brothers” Although torn in his feelings the boy wants to stay. When Montalbano tells his woman friend this she is very angry and thinks this is either him trying to get out of his commitment or that the foster family are trying to take the child away from her. As the episode ends she makes a secret visit to see the boy and had decided to leave without seeing Montalbano. What happened is the boy had been happy to see her and said he loved her but also said he wanted to stay and she realised this was true and that it was an important outcome. She is devastated but had been persuaded by the policeman’s brother of the family to see Montalbano and explain what had happened. She is too upset to stay and leaves. It is possible at that moment to believe that the relationship has or will end especially as the possibility of an exciting new relationship with a young woman emerges. What may be an answer is a feature of the second episode.
In the second episode Montalbano is a car passenger travelling at speed on their way to the funeral of a colleague when to avoid a chicken in the road they hit a parked car by a large gated property They discover that the property belongs to a wealthy family in Bologna which his wife is renovating, staying at a hotel in Sicily. The vehicle is registered to her so it is puzzling that she has not been in contact. The police receive an anonymous call that there has been a murder and they investigate and find that the woman naked and strangled. Montalbano covers her body with a bathroom which he had found laying on the bathroom floor. There is a jurisdiction problem because of the location of the property and the situation is supervised by someone, I believe a presiding judge, where Montalbano has no respect and the man dislikes him and takes him off the case and criticises he interfered with the crime scene by placing the bathrobe over the body. In this story there are several strands which take time to come together to resolve the position.
He believes the evidence points to a crime of passion, with the husband of the woman the first suspect for consideration. It emerges that the husband became impotent because of an operation and made the marriage of convenience in order to stop speculation. His wife had male friends to satisfy her passions which she was frank about to her husband and he loved her like a daughter.
The woman has a friend in Sicily, a school teacher of physics who is also beautiful and who tells Montalbano that she remains unmarried by choice because she has not met the right man. At first she is defensive about her friend but later she admits her knowledge of the situation and I believe it is she who provides the name and information about the latest man who Montalbano contacts by phone, and Art dealer in Bologna and says he as an alibi.
The main who is arranging the renovations is also a suspect and in particular his son who has learning difficulties and followed the woman as a puppy. The young man is shot dead by the local police when they go to arrest him living in a cave. They claim he had a bomb in his hand, a grenade. Montalbano is suspicious of this. The father and son were not registered gun owners and therefore they could not claim the man was armed. Montalbano insists on seeing the grenade which is of the Second World War and is aware that there is a museum of weapons at the police station. It begins to emerge that there is a connection between the anonymous call about the death, the killing of the boy and the mafia when Montalbano is sent a tape showing the head of flying squad plant the grenade to obtain clear finger prints. Montalbano visits and urges the police chief to act to prevent a scandal unfolding which affects everyone.
He has visited a woman to apologise for not being able to attend the funeral and she mentions that an internationally acclaimed violinist lives up stairs that no longer goes out but plays concerts for her. The episode has Violin in its title and Montalbano was surprised at the crime scene that an expensive looking violin case was opened when it was established that the woman did not play. The story emerges that the woman had passed by the accommodation one day and had heard violin playing and called and asked if the musician would given an opinion about a violin she had found at the property. It was an important instrument which he had arranged to repair and then to play. He had given the woman with her knowledge a good violin but not one of significant value. This suggests she was suspicions of her lover’s interest in the instrument.
The violinist explains that he has petite mal which had become worse and fearing an attack during a concert he had given up performing, except for his neighbours.
Despite providing an alibi Montalbano is able to establish that the woman had gone to the airport to pick up the lover and he had murdered. The episode opens with the woman late at night calling at a garage on her way to collect him.
He had significant gambling debts to the mafia and learning that she had a valuable violin he had murdered the woman and replaced the violin with a factory made one. His actions had been witnessed by the young man with learning difficulties who had then been killed by the police. He had developed a bad foot which had swollen so he had removed a shoe which was had held when he emerged from the case as requested.
At the police station there is a uniformed officer who appears clumsy and who Montalbano and his colleagues find a nuisance as well as a joke. When they are asked to send someone on a course to learn about computers he appears the ideal candidate. When he returns he presents his certificate which indicates he was the best student on the course and which appears to have been run on the mainland for forces throughout Italy. They are surprised and impressed by the achievement and see their colleague in a new light.
Montalbano is also an individualist like the others who demands of his subordinates but protects and furthers their situations. As with all similar characters his private life has its ups and downs and is affected but his work as well as his inclination to be a law unto himself,
He has a long term relationship with a woman who lives on the mainland and which he and his colleagues refer as Italy, regarding Sicily as separate, and the couple visit each other by plane when they can and which appears not often given they both have demanding occupations. They both find the situation has disadvantages as well as advantages with his work affecting their relationship when she makes a special visit and then she questions if she is more than a sex object. A child encountered in the first episode has a significant affect on their relationship and the bond that been established over the greater part of a decade.
In the first episode a man is shot on a ship while at sea I cannot remember just within or outside Italian waters with one ship involved Italian but the man a citizen of a North African country. Montalbano is happy for the case to pass to others while he concentrates on the murder of businessman. I sensed the wife was guilty at the outset although she blames the man’s alleged mistress. The wife has an alibi that she left for a visit early that day and returned on hearing the news on In fact Montalbano proves that although the wife said she left early to visit she had never arrived and he then establishes that she got off the bus and got on another returning home, killed the husband and then left. This emerges later in the episode
Understandably Montalbano first thought is to find the mistress and visits the enclave of fellow countrymen and only later would have noted that she was of the same nationality as the man murdered at sea and of the country where was a dispute over responsibility. Visiting the enclave he makes contact with an old woman friend of the alleged mistress who has a son and both are said to have gone to stay with a friend of the old woman.
However the young woman and her son do not arrive at the friend and her home is found ransacked. The old woman shows where the alleged mistress had hidden her bank book which contained over 100 million lire which puts the series before 1999 when the euro came in and when such an amount was worth £50000, still a lot of money but not fortune. Although for someone with the background and living conditions of the young woman it was.
I say alleged mistress because her relationship with the business man is never clarified to my satisfaction
Montalbano also come across some people complaining about a young boy stealing snacks crisps and chocolate from children in a one neighbourhood on his way to and from seeing the old woman. This is also to have significance.
After placing information on the media a man comes forward to say he had seen the woman in a car at a bus stop arguing with a man. He had considered approaching but had refrained although he made a note of the vehicle registration number. Apparently in Italy at that time it was difficult getting an immediate trace even for the police. Here any police officer can get an immediate trace through their onboard vehicle computer. In Italy it could take days if not weeks so Montalbano has to pull strings to get a response which he then finds the information is blocked because of national security reasons.
His female friend is spending a few days with him. And it is something which she says which makes him realise there is a connection between the woman is seen in the car but without the boy, and the boy stealing the food. His female friend accompanies and it she who is able to befriend the boy when he is found. They care for the boy and the child brings out the maternal feelings in the woman who is getting no younger and where she has reconciled with difficulty that for various reasons Montalbano is not going to marry her. However his position changes when he too befriends the boy who reciprocates the affection. It is the boy who explains that when his mother saw the man in the car driving up she told the boy to run into the adjacent field and hide. Then the boy recognises the mystery man who was killed on the boat. It is her mother’s brother!
Montalbano is able to work out from other inquires that the brother was a drug smuggler and that the businessman was a front operation for the smuggling. This is why the office was more of a flat with a bed than an office. This suggest that the young woman was his mistress but not conclusively because the money appears to have originated from the drug dealing, although again there are issues which also makes this unclear,
When she had seen the news of the death of her brother she had gone immediately to see the businessman at his home. I am not sure of the sequence of events but I think that she made two visits. The wife who knew about a relationship between the young woman and her husband, but not his involvement in the drug smuggling had been incensed to find the woman was in her home although it may have been coincidental and she had planned to kill him that very morning and blame the mistress. What is certain is that the young woman had been in that flat in the morning as her scent and found the body and panicked and feared for her life thinking it was the same killer who had killed her brother.
She had not taken the bank book with her in case she was caught and the money taken from her. It as all that she could give to her son with Montalbano fearing she was now dead. In order to smoke the villain out, now that he had been refused the known information about him from the car registration he put out a media story that the boy was missing having arranged for the boy to placed with the relatives of a policeman in the country. He tells his female friend to leave and the old woman to go and stay with her friends. Unfortunately before he can communicate this to old woman she leaves to check that the boy has not returned home. She is murdered but has not given up the location of the bank book. Montalbano takes the book to the Public Notary for its safekeeping in order that it should become part of his mother’s estate. Unfortunately this cannot happen until a body is found.
Montalbano uses further deceptions to bring the security forces to his door and he arranged for a camera to be place secretly. As anticipated a senior official arrives who admit their complicity in the affair aiding another government but unaware the intention was to eliminate witnesses. The assassin had already returned to the home country. Montalbano then uses the video tape to blackmail the official to finding the body. He breaks the man’s glasses so that he cannot be immediately followed and stopped before taking the tape into the safe keeping at his office. Fortunately the threat of public exposure works and an unrecognisable body is found washed up on the shore but here are personal effects which identify the woman as the boy’s mother. It is presumed that this is not the real body but a fix to ensure that the boy inherits his mother’s estate. I say fortunately because when he checks the tape he founds that he did not start the camera!
His woman friend reveals her frustration at not being married and not having children is affected by the boy who has reciprocated their affection and says he wants to be with them. The programme ends with impression that the couple are to marry and adopt the boy.
It is during the second episode yesterday evening that Montalbano goes to visit the boy who appears to be afraid of him. The boy explains that he is very happy in his new home especially as he has ”brothers” Although torn in his feelings the boy wants to stay. When Montalbano tells his woman friend this she is very angry and thinks this is either him trying to get out of his commitment or that the foster family are trying to take the child away from her. As the episode ends she makes a secret visit to see the boy and had decided to leave without seeing Montalbano. What happened is the boy had been happy to see her and said he loved her but also said he wanted to stay and she realised this was true and that it was an important outcome. She is devastated but had been persuaded by the policeman’s brother of the family to see Montalbano and explain what had happened. She is too upset to stay and leaves. It is possible at that moment to believe that the relationship has or will end especially as the possibility of an exciting new relationship with a young woman emerges. What may be an answer is a feature of the second episode.
In the second episode Montalbano is a car passenger travelling at speed on their way to the funeral of a colleague when to avoid a chicken in the road they hit a parked car by a large gated property They discover that the property belongs to a wealthy family in Bologna which his wife is renovating, staying at a hotel in Sicily. The vehicle is registered to her so it is puzzling that she has not been in contact. The police receive an anonymous call that there has been a murder and they investigate and find that the woman naked and strangled. Montalbano covers her body with a bathroom which he had found laying on the bathroom floor. There is a jurisdiction problem because of the location of the property and the situation is supervised by someone, I believe a presiding judge, where Montalbano has no respect and the man dislikes him and takes him off the case and criticises he interfered with the crime scene by placing the bathrobe over the body. In this story there are several strands which take time to come together to resolve the position.
He believes the evidence points to a crime of passion, with the husband of the woman the first suspect for consideration. It emerges that the husband became impotent because of an operation and made the marriage of convenience in order to stop speculation. His wife had male friends to satisfy her passions which she was frank about to her husband and he loved her like a daughter.
The woman has a friend in Sicily, a school teacher of physics who is also beautiful and who tells Montalbano that she remains unmarried by choice because she has not met the right man. At first she is defensive about her friend but later she admits her knowledge of the situation and I believe it is she who provides the name and information about the latest man who Montalbano contacts by phone, and Art dealer in Bologna and says he as an alibi.
The main who is arranging the renovations is also a suspect and in particular his son who has learning difficulties and followed the woman as a puppy. The young man is shot dead by the local police when they go to arrest him living in a cave. They claim he had a bomb in his hand, a grenade. Montalbano is suspicious of this. The father and son were not registered gun owners and therefore they could not claim the man was armed. Montalbano insists on seeing the grenade which is of the Second World War and is aware that there is a museum of weapons at the police station. It begins to emerge that there is a connection between the anonymous call about the death, the killing of the boy and the mafia when Montalbano is sent a tape showing the head of flying squad plant the grenade to obtain clear finger prints. Montalbano visits and urges the police chief to act to prevent a scandal unfolding which affects everyone.
He has visited a woman to apologise for not being able to attend the funeral and she mentions that an internationally acclaimed violinist lives up stairs that no longer goes out but plays concerts for her. The episode has Violin in its title and Montalbano was surprised at the crime scene that an expensive looking violin case was opened when it was established that the woman did not play. The story emerges that the woman had passed by the accommodation one day and had heard violin playing and called and asked if the musician would given an opinion about a violin she had found at the property. It was an important instrument which he had arranged to repair and then to play. He had given the woman with her knowledge a good violin but not one of significant value. This suggests she was suspicions of her lover’s interest in the instrument.
The violinist explains that he has petite mal which had become worse and fearing an attack during a concert he had given up performing, except for his neighbours.
Despite providing an alibi Montalbano is able to establish that the woman had gone to the airport to pick up the lover and he had murdered. The episode opens with the woman late at night calling at a garage on her way to collect him.
He had significant gambling debts to the mafia and learning that she had a valuable violin he had murdered the woman and replaced the violin with a factory made one. His actions had been witnessed by the young man with learning difficulties who had then been killed by the police. He had developed a bad foot which had swollen so he had removed a shoe which was had held when he emerged from the case as requested.
At the police station there is a uniformed officer who appears clumsy and who Montalbano and his colleagues find a nuisance as well as a joke. When they are asked to send someone on a course to learn about computers he appears the ideal candidate. When he returns he presents his certificate which indicates he was the best student on the course and which appears to have been run on the mainland for forces throughout Italy. They are surprised and impressed by the achievement and see their colleague in a new light.
During the episodes there is contact between Montalbano and the attractive teacher who leaves a message at one point to say she has information which could of assistance. They live close to each other in a coastal town and she calls one evening to see him with the information. He does not invite her to stay because he is busy working on papers related to the case but before she departs she indicates she is open to his calling on her at anytime for anything signalling that she has found her man. As the case ends and his relationship with his long term partner at a distance has reached crisis point because they both appreciate that the boy has found somewhere he wants to stay, Montalbano seriously considers taking up the offer of the young woman and drives to where the teacher lives. We here his thoughts that the case had been one full of mistakes. He drives away deciding that to call however inviting would have been another mistake. He contacts his long term partner to say that he would like to come and visit that weekend. She is pleased with the news and will pick him up at the airport.
No comments:
Post a Comment