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 commissariat 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.
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.
NOTES
The cold open makes no sense until you get a good way into the episode, and then you realize how audacious it is.
I couldn't make out the first words out of Sunlight's mouth (2'24") the first time, this time I found this scene in a copy of the episode professionally dubbed into Spanish, and figured out the French from that. She says, Il y a derriere les gars deux fou! and Vincent, ils (something) ma peau.
Edit: ‘I don’t have four arms’ and the octopus stuff (5’58”) makes more sense than what I had before. Pieuvre and poulpe both mean octopus or squid, but poulpe can also mean calamari, and that’s funnier as a name.
Edit: I decided that rather than ‘Samy on the run,’ Samy la cavale (6’49”) means Samy the Escape Artist.
Still not sure if the ‘50-plus-bonus’ refers to 50 months, 50 weeks, or a €50,000 fine.
Samy resignedly hands over his gun and apparently utters a tired faire/fais chier, ‘piss off/fuck you.’ But it has to be chie, ‘shit,’ in order to match her joke about offering him paper.
7’32” The gendarmerie post appears to be the same one used in Episode 6, La nuit de la lune rousse (Night of the Blood Moon).
Sasha Hékimian (Melissa) is just starting out, her Facebook says she’s still a student at the National Conservatory of Dramatic Art.
La Rockeuse de Diamants (The Diamond Rocker, 11’27”) was a big hit in the 80s for Catherine Lara— composer of the Marleau theme and incidentals.
Marleau gets the lyrics wrong.
We see Lara as a Catherine Lara impersonator lip syncing to her own song.
Le corbeau et le reynard by Jean de La Fontaine is frequently referenced in French pop culture including Marleau (13’02”), it’s the Dick & Jane of France.
15’08”: Not even the same number of syllables.
Edit: Mona Chollet (16’19”) is a better joke than what I had before.
I finally noticed the word picrate (18’29” c.f.) and that it means ‘plonk.’ It makes Marleau needling Duchesne about his social connections more pointy.
La Rockeuse de Diamants (The Diamond Rocker, 11’27”) was a big hit in the 80s for Catherine Lara— composer of the Marleau theme and incidentals.
Marleau gets the lyrics wrong.
We see Lara as a Catherine Lara impersonator lip syncing to her own song.
Le corbeau et le reynard by Jean de La Fontaine is frequently referenced in French pop culture including Marleau (13’02”), it’s the Dick & Jane of France.
15’08”: Not even the same number of syllables.
Edit: Mona Chollet (16’19”) is a better joke than what I had before.
I finally noticed the word picrate (18’29” c.f.) and that it means ‘plonk.’ It makes Marleau needling Duchesne about his social connections more pointy.
There is no François or Paul in the story.
20’45”: Ardéchois cœur fidèle (Loyal Heart of The Ardèche) was a 1974 miniseries about a veteran of Napoleon’s army who gets involved in a fight between rival Compagnon associations. A theme in that series was old loyalties vs. new power structures, so Marleau may be commenting about resistance to cell towers in the Archeche.
Edit: This time through I understood Melissa’s reference to 4G.
It turns out Klaus Nomi (21’57”) was known for a 1981 live recording of The Cold Song.
Episode title tie-in: I didn’t notice the first time, but ‘madhouse’ is refuge de follie (26’00”).
Edit: It was terre, not pere, so the two kinds of people are buriers and diggers.
36'12": No gloves.
20’45”: Ardéchois cœur fidèle (Loyal Heart of The Ardèche) was a 1974 miniseries about a veteran of Napoleon’s army who gets involved in a fight between rival Compagnon associations. A theme in that series was old loyalties vs. new power structures, so Marleau may be commenting about resistance to cell towers in the Archeche.
Edit: This time through I understood Melissa’s reference to 4G.
It turns out Klaus Nomi (21’57”) was known for a 1981 live recording of The Cold Song.
Episode title tie-in: I didn’t notice the first time, but ‘madhouse’ is refuge de follie (26’00”).
Edit: It was terre, not pere, so the two kinds of people are buriers and diggers.
36'12": No gloves.
Edit (44’25”): The first time I thought I heard couteau, pour la fermer, ‘knife, to end it,’ but now I think it was compte, pour la fermer, ‘counting on you to close it down.’
45’59”: I originally heard ‘Sunlight,’ but it was really son mec.
Coulé, ‘sank,’ not coupé, ‘hit.’
Edit (48’53”): Picked up a phrase about lui planter un couteau dans le dos avant, ‘stabbing him in the back first.’
52’58”: I still don’t know exactly what Marleau yells at Claude, but it’s ‘Shit… bruck.’ A bruck is a kind of hat, but not French– and not the kind she’s wearing. But it’s the best I can do.
The chant Marleau tries to get going (53’48”) when Duchesne raids Follie's during her big number: originally I couldn't make out all of it, assumed it was all strictly French, so I made the translation make sense. This time I'm going with what I hear: Bien gay, oui tres, bien gay, ‘Very gay, yes, very, very gay,’ etc.
Yes, she says n’importe quoi, ‘nonsense,’ but with her outfit I couldn’t resist the ‘what-ever.’
Notre-Dame-d'Estrées (55’56”) is a lonely-looking farming community in the Calvados department in Normandy, some time ago it merged with adjacent Corbon, becoming Notre-Dame-d'Estrées-Corbon.
I had translated de garde son coude as ‘kicked him out,’ but the actual meaning may be less vindictive, so I changed it to ‘sidelined.’
I’m not sure if Marleau exclaims ma-maaan or ma-merrrde.
Alain doesn’t work at Platons, a place on Jersey, but plein temps, ‘full-time.’ Heh.
59’01”: What I put last time was more vernacular, this is a stricter translation that hits harder.
61’41”: Out of order scene, Sunlight just left Marleau’s office.
J'ai mon voyage, ‘I’ve got my trip’ (65’25”), means ‘I can’t believe it/I’ll be a skinned lizard.’
69’27”: Wow, I really got that wrong the first time.
71’33”: LOL, what an answer.
71’41”: Now I’m thinking Knitting Nicole is a French Revolution reference.
73’43”: Camembert of course means ‘shut up.’ And c'est l'hôpital qui se fout de la charité, ‘the hospital that doesn’t care about charity,’ means ‘the pot calling the kettle black.’
76’06”: Marleau jokes that she’s on her calendar route, my translation makes it clear she’s selling calendars for charity. I missed the meaning the first time; recently I guessed about this with “Port d’attache.” It turns out that legally only firefighters and postal workers do this.
79’22”: I made Jeremy’s threat (as remembered by Vincent) less fearful of prison and more thuggish.
Les faux aveugles, literally ‘fake blind people’ (82’01”), involves the idea of beggars who scam money by pretending to be disabled.
87’35”: I finally figured out the song Marleau sings here, Edith Piaf’s Les Amants D'un Jour (Lovers For a Day). The line is supposed to be Moi j'essuie les verres au fond du café, ‘I wipe the glasses at the back of the café,’ but instead she sings Moi jolie Lana (My pretty Lana), at the back of the café. I don’t know why.
Cabane, ‘shack/hut’ (90’59”), also means ‘jail/joint/the big house.’
69’27”: Wow, I really got that wrong the first time.
71’33”: LOL, what an answer.
71’41”: Now I’m thinking Knitting Nicole is a French Revolution reference.
73’43”: Camembert of course means ‘shut up.’ And c'est l'hôpital qui se fout de la charité, ‘the hospital that doesn’t care about charity,’ means ‘the pot calling the kettle black.’
76’06”: Marleau jokes that she’s on her calendar route, my translation makes it clear she’s selling calendars for charity. I missed the meaning the first time; recently I guessed about this with “Port d’attache.” It turns out that legally only firefighters and postal workers do this.
79’22”: I made Jeremy’s threat (as remembered by Vincent) less fearful of prison and more thuggish.
Les faux aveugles, literally ‘fake blind people’ (82’01”), involves the idea of beggars who scam money by pretending to be disabled.
87’35”: I finally figured out the song Marleau sings here, Edith Piaf’s Les Amants D'un Jour (Lovers For a Day). The line is supposed to be Moi j'essuie les verres au fond du café, ‘I wipe the glasses at the back of the café,’ but instead she sings Moi jolie Lana (My pretty Lana), at the back of the café. I don’t know why.
Cabane, ‘shack/hut’ (90’59”), also means ‘jail/joint/the big house.’
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