Adieu, Blogger.

I've taken the plunge and ported this blog over to Substack. Could there be a more appropriate place for a subtitling blog than on SUBStack?  I think not.  Anyway, the new URL is translationnotes.substack.com.

See you over there!

Maman Dearest

Capitaine Marleau #40, “Marleau à Saint-Tropez” (Marleau in St. Tropez), runtime 1:34:22
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Marleau is called to sun-drenched Saint-Tropez when Raphaël, the grandson of the very rich Léonard Michelli, is very kidnapped, and the local gendarmes are sent a very severed ear in the mail.

Only thing is– Léonard doesn’t want to pay the 30-million (euros?) ransom. The secretive Pénélope Milo (Marie-Josée Croze), daughter of local moviestar royalty (also Croze, in a brief flashback), might be one source of pressure. And why is Pénélope trying to get Lola (Raphaël’s girlfriend) out of the picture? Is Leonard’s son Dany too meek to be real? Is Lola’s dad Khader more than just Pénélope’s gardener? And how do the kidnappers seem to know what the Gendarmes are planning? Complicating matters is the discovery of the body of a murdered photographer, a paparazzo who was in possession of photos of Raphaël and Lola. What muck was he raking by visiting a gynecology clinic in Nice?

Marleau has only the local brigade on which to rely, featuring almost-identical twin lieutenants Félix and Martin, and their protective civilian aide/house mother Stéph.

l-r: Valentin Riot-Sarcey as Félix, Justin Chassel as Martin, Corinne Masiero, and Agathe Natanson as Stéph.

MISC

Keep an eye on Marleau’s hair. Unbraided, it becomes frizzier and frizzier— and blonder— as time passes, as though reacting to the hot Riviera weather. Which doesn't quite make sense, since there have been episodes in Corsica and Guadeloupe.


NOTES

Cold open: Gallais the photographer is played by Michel Ferracci, husband of the late Émilie Dequenne from Episode 36, “La 7eme danse,” in which he was Daniel the biker.  Ferracci also played Mori in Episode 18, “Pace e Salute” (the Corsica episode).

The grand aerial shot (1’09”) starts above Saint-Tropez flying west to east. The Plage de la Ponche beach is in the foreground; Portelet Tower is on the right; the bell tower is Église Paroissiale Notre-Dame-de-l'Assomption. The Port of Saint-Tropez is in the background

Chekhov's trip to the airport

La nuit americaine (Day For Night), 1973. Runtime 1:55:58
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The first time I watched Day For Night was, and this absolutely dates me, not long after I first saw Close Encounters of The Third Kind. The part of ‘Mr Lacombe’ the French scientist/ET hunter was played by François Truffaut; since I was a kid I had never heard of him. I must have looked him up at the library, and some time afterward I saw his film Day For Night on TV, probably Seattle Channel 9, the PBS affiliate. Although it could have been NBC Channel 5, in those days the Bullitt family owned it, and their afternoon movie slot was where I first saw things like The Seven-Ups, What's Up, Doc?, and Sugarland Express.

l-r: Dani as Liliane, Jean-Pierre Léaud as Alphonse, Truffaut as Ferrand.

Being a kid, of course I didn't understand it. “So boring,” I probably said. I do recall being fascinated by the technical aspects of filmmaking.

Recently I came across a homemade CD of various French songs from different eras, and one of the tracks was Le grand choral, basically the Day For Night theme, composed by Georges Delerue. I recognized it immediately and was suddenly seized by an urge to see the film again.

I found the Criterion release, which I assume is the 2016 restoration. I don’t know where the Opensubtitles file came from. I quickly saw that the English translation had the sort of paraphrasing and abridgement that annoys me, so after watching it I thought it would make for a fun project.

*  *  *

In one of the best movies about moviemaking, Ferrand (Truffaut) is a director trying to make a formulaic romantic tragedy titled Meet Paméla, about a young wife who falls in love with her father-in-

Tax The Rich

I normally post Falco episode translations two at a time, but it's American tax season, I'm preoccupied with my documents, and I’m exhausted. Therefore only one Falco this time.


Falco S03E07, “Sous les cendres” (Under the Ashes), runtime 50:49
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Alex finally takes the plunge and acquires real estate— but it's a converted space that looks more like a squad room than an apartment. The brigade has moved too, and Eva’s not happy with technical issues at the new office.

Meanwhile, the squad investigates a skeleton uncovered on a vacant lot, and they link it first to an old missing person case, and then have the realization that they are really dealing with two homicides.

Alex continues the search for Edouard Ponthieux, the hood threatening Éléonore.

l-r: Stévenin, Manuel, and Barlier

NOTES

3’31”: The French title of The Deer Hunter is Au bout de l’enfer (To the depths of hell), not Chasseur de cerfs.
      Ah, Gravity, what people were watching at home in the mid-2010s.

When speaking of a marriage, l'alliance (4’01”) is the ring.

Notre petite ambassade, Ep. 5 & 6

Notre petite ambassade (Our Little Embassy) Ep. 5, “La clé du bonheur” (The Key To Happiness), runtime 21:13
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Kai the courier brings the diplomatic bag, containing state secrets and (most importantly) treats from home. But Konsti is injured in a watermelon accident and can’t remember where the key is. Lupe plans an operation to rescue Walti.

Lupe’s elite strike team (l-r: Cristo Fernandez, Anaïs Decasper, Valentin Villaverde)

MISC

Remember, I'm translating the dubbed-French audio from the show's France 3 broadcast.


NOTES

Although Switzerland as a federal state was formed in 1848, it has been known as ‘the Confederation’ (0’28”) since medieval times when it was the Swiss Confederacy.

The map (2’01”) has no clues as to the series location.

Notre petite ambassade Ep. 3 & 4

Notre petite ambassade (Our Little Embassy) Ep. 3, “Qui sème le séisme” (Who sows the earthquake), runtime 21:20
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Walti’s attempt at mojito diplomacy appears to have become a full-fledged hostage situation; it's Lupe and Guillermo's silver anniversary; Selina receives an important assignment just when she’s feeling professionally underchallenged; Konsti tries to deliver on his parental (!) commitments; Mrs Zybach and Chili Gonzalez are among the earthquake casualties.

Earthquake drill: the earth doesn't actually move for Marisol and Adrien (Sandra Zellwegger and Jonas Gygax)

MISC

I now have a second source of the show available to me for this project, but it's in the original German. I'll use it when the French dubbing is less discernable.

Arturo’s character started as a paranoid rookie cop, but has become a half-sweet motormouth..

Notre petite ambassade, Ep. 1 & 2

Notre petite ambassade (Our Little Embassy) popped up recently in my France 3 feed, it’s a 2025 sitcom about the staff of a Swiss embassy somewhere in South America. The series’ original title is Unsere Kleine Botschaft, so it’s from the German-speaking segment of Switzerland, and what France 3 is showing is dubbed into French (except for some in-context Spanish).


MISC

The cast includes Cristo Fernandez, who was Dani on Ted Lasso.

According to Cineuropa, this was the first Swiss sitcom in 20 years.

It was canceled after this first season, due to low ratings.

The Federal Council is Switzerland’s ministerial cabinet, the seven members are the collective chief executive of the country.


Notre petite ambassade (Our Little Embassy) Ep. 1, “L'échec fait partie du succès” (The Success Game), runtime 21:40
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Béa Laïtenegger (Susanne Kunz) is Switzerland’s ambitious ambassador to an unnamed South American country. She’s just finalized an agreement for building a Swiss train to take coffee beans to a seaport, when the Swiss bureaucracy rains on her parade: the Federal official being sent to sign the accord is her ex-husband.

Ambassador Béa (Susanne Kunz, r) and Lupe her assistant/fixer (Darinka Ezeta)

NOTES

4’12”: Well-done fake photo of Béa and her ex-husband meeting Barack Obama.

There is no one named Follie

My new semi-regular thread Rewatch Project kicks off with “Follie’s,” what I feel is the best episode so far of my favorite French mystery, Capitaine Marleau. I’ve watched the episode again and made a number of changes– some retranslations, some formatting improvements, and application of my current stylebook.


Capitaine Marleau #30 “Follie’s” (2023), runtime 1:37:03
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Marleau is basking in the glow of news reports about her capture of an escaped fugitive. She’s about to head off down the road when a woman stops her in the post lobby begging her to find her missing daughter, Sylvie. Marleau’s boss pro temps Cmdr. Duchesne had been less than helpful when Sylvie’s disappearance was originally reported, owing to her being a stripper (under the stage name Sunlight) at the local cabaret, Follie’s. Duchesne shares some choice insults about Follie’s’s colorful staff, at which point Marleau decides they must be her kind of people.

However the Follie’s family closes ranks, indicating Sunlight isn’t missing so much as hiding. There are also corrupt politicians and businessmen, sex tapes, and a blackmailer who is as scarce as Sunlight. So Marleau and her assistant Melissa– and to an equal extent Vincent, Sunlight’s roommate– have to do it the hard way: by annoying the hell out of the suspects one by one.


MISC

I originally posted the translation for “Follie’s” on August 27, 2023. Yes, MHZ is way behind.

What makes “Follie's” so wonderful, the apostrophe notwithstanding?

• The sheer volume of work that must have gone into it: it's two episodes, a mystery and a musical.
• The Easter eggs.
• The world inside Follie's and the connections Marleau builds with the inhabitants.
• Bugs Bunny vs. Yosemite Sam- I mean Marleau vs. Duchesne.

Catherine Ringer (Rosa) is a multi-talented singer/songwriter/actor/musician, who also had a career in adult films and traded insults about it with Serge Gainsbourg on TV.

Samuel Mercer (Vincent) played Samuel Muir in the first Marleau series episode, “Philippe Muir.”

Zahia Dehar (Sunlight) first entered the public eye in 2010, when she was arrested in connection with a prostitution investigation involving footballers, and again in 2020 when the case was reopened.

Why did I think translating a 26-year-old episode would be fun?

It’s the second anniversary of Translation Notes.

Florence Larrieu: La juge est une femme (Florence Larrieu: The Judge is a Woman), “Suspectes,” 2000, runtime 95:21
Subtitles download link

MHZ recently posted the final episodes of Alice Nevers: The Judge is a Woman, moving the long-running series from Paris to Normandy, where Alice and Fred go for their perfect life together. Alice brought the kids but not her clerk, who shows up briefly in the epilogue. Fred didn’t bring his partner Karim, which is just as well as since Karim would probably be afraid of the horses in the final case.

Before Alice’s arrival in 2002 the show went by the name Florence Larrieu: The Judge is a Woman. Apparently female judges were such a rarity that the fact had to be part of the title. Florence Pernel played Judge Larrieu for 17 episodes between 1993 and 2002. I have this joke that there are only 12 actors in France, because the same actors keep popping up over and over. Well, Florence Pernel is three or four of them. If you watch a lot of French TV like I do, she seems to be everywhere.

Florence Pernel, with Frederic Diefenthal

I got it off YouTube. Because it’s 26 years old the audio is not all one would hope for, much of the higher registers are fried or blown out. When I couldn’t make out what was being said, Vosk was usually no help; I did my best.

The episode is titled “Suspectes”: Larrieu and her assistant Lt. Colas investigate when hardened robber Jackie breaks out of a women's prison, in which the inmates are contract employees for a tech company. A guard dies during the escape. Jackie just wants to see her daughter but also denies being the killer, as well as the earlier robbery. Will the tech company get any blame, or is it a red herring? Will Florence and Colas ever stop bickering like siblings?


MISC

The Judge is a Woman was created by Noelle Loriot based on her trilogy of Laurence Larrieu crime novels— so, prior to Nevers all the names had to rhyme.

Larrieu was the judge for seasons 1-7, Nevers for seasons 8-26.

The only character present for both judges was Édouard Lemonnier, their clerk, played by Jean Dell (seasons 1-9). Édouard’s nephew Victor (Guillaume Carcaud) became the clerk for seasons 9-26.

Lt. Victor Colas was played by Frederic Diefenthal (Meurtres à Rouen). He was with the show 1993-2001, and “Suspectes” is from Season 5. But at 21’45” he mentions that he and Florence’s partnership is still new.

There’s a cut in the video at 43’21”, probably done by whoever posted it. Of course this affects the subtitles sync for viewers who might have the uncut version.


NOTES

Surveillante (5’22”) can be translated as ‘matron,’ but it feels dated.
      The prosecutor asks Florence au moins que c'est au plus vite (At least do it ASAP). Or it could be au manque c'est au plus vite– something like ‘we’ll be short (handed?), be quick.’ As though someone had announced their departure in the previous episode.
      Which might help explain when Florence replies trois jours, ‘three days’ (5’27”). Whatever that meant, the prosecutor doesn’t seem thrilled.

Brest Friends

Les Trois Brestoises, “The Three Women From Brest,” runtime 1:30:09
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Recently widowed Léanne Vallauri (Deborah Krey) is back in her hometown of Brest to take command of the local La Crim, the crime squad. Luckily, for support she can count on her two best friends: Vanéssa Fabre (Charlotte Gaccio), a criminologist, and Elodie Quille (Garance Thenault), a doctor/pathologist. The case is the unusual and gruesome murder of Corentine Le Dantec, a perfect grandma loved by all. Except Léanne uncovers an abusive neighbor, a gang of con artists who scam and steal from the elderly, and their fence– leads which all turn out to be going in completely the wrong direction.

L-R: Léanne (Krey), Elodie (Thenault), and Vanéssa (Gaccio)

MISC

Krey is in Les Invisibles, and lately appeared in Piste Noire and Meurtres a Montauban. Gaccio recurs as Delphine on Astrid et Raphaelle. And Thenault appears everywhere, including Meurtres Sur La Côte Bleue.

Brest is a port city located at the northwest tip of France, and is the third-largest city in Brittany. Like Le Havre, Brest was extensively rebuilt following heavy bombardment in World War II.

Vincent Heneine (Lionel) appeared in 2024’s Follow, with Marie Colombe.

Yvan Le Bolloc’h (Cmsr. Pierre Pouchet) is a well-known TV host and radio performer.