Balthazar

The biggest surprise of my summer viewing has been the French crime drama series Balthazar.

The title character is Raphaël Balthazar (Tomer Sisley), a forensic examiner for the Paris police. He works with the Hélène Bach (Hélène de Fougerolles), chief homicide inspector, and a supporting cast of regulars. Each episode features some grisly crime that Balthazar and Hélène solve. This is pretty standard fare, but the twist in this show is that you actually see the corpses being examined and dissected in graphic, close-up detail as  Balthazar quips and flirts with his boss. This show is full of Gallic stereotypes and is definitely not PC. This will be off-putting for some but Tomer is so endearing and surprising that it somehow works. His dialogs with the corpses in his care (and his dead girlfriend) is a great dramatic device that allows him to explore his character in depth. Hélène is a wonderful actor as well and she was familiar to me, I had seen her in an Icelandic film from 2002! The cinematography is excellent and there are a lot of beautiful shots of Paris and the French countryside.

Highly Recommended.

Balthazar is distributed by Acorn, a company that usually handles British dramas. I found it in my library, season two will be available in October or you can stream it.