MARIANNE
The French way of interpreting horror
Marianne is the new horror Netflix original tv series broadcasted from 13th September. Like many other titles on Netflix catalogue, Marianne is a French production and it is quite interesting seeing how the number of French, German and other countries productions is increasing, beside the most famous British and American ones.
This tv series has been immediately well received by the critics and the audience, considered as a breath of fresh air in the saturated panorama of horror movies. With the right soundtrack, shots, and jump scares whitin the narrative equilibrium, the story attract and accompany the audience towards a crescendo of terror.
From an idea of Samuel Bodin, the story talks about a writer of horror novels, Emma Larsimon, who reached a planetary success, money and a huge fame but she hides a turbid past and a macabre secret. She became famous thanks her book saga "Lizzie Larck", a demons and spirits hunter, which her nemesis is the evil witch Marianne. Tired of writing about the same character, Emma decides to write the last book of the saga to dedicate herself to new projects. And exactly at this point the story begins, because no one can escape from his past, especially when your past comes to visit you everyday in your dreams, as it happens to Emma.
The story is divided in chapters, as they were pages of a book, and the narration is built in a way that the curiosity grows episode after episode about what happened in the past, til the episode where every puzzle tassels are put in the right place.
I don't wanna spoil anything, so I will just mention some parts of the storyline to make this review more understandable.
In balance between reality and oneiric
After a creepy meeting with an old friend, she comes back to her hometown, a little village in the nowhere, and this is the first step of a long journey that will led her to face her past. Back to Elden, she has to face her family relations, her demons that hunted her since she was just a child and find out what happened to the mother of a her friend, that seems to be too obsessed with Emma' books, Mrs Daugeron. She seems to be possessed by a demon, or more probably she's just a crazy woman; her main aim is that Emma continues to write about Lizzie Larck, because only by writing the demon Marianne can live, surviving in the memory of the audience. Mrs Daugeron starts hunting Emma, her family and closest friends, until Emma is forced to make a chooise; continue to feed the demon through the writing or risk the lifes of her affects trying to kill Marianne for good. All these events are strictly linked with Emma obscure past, because Marianne is not just a fictional character, but is the demon that tormented Emma in her dreams since she was a baby, and the reason why she left her hometown for ever.
The point of strength of this Tv series is the combination of what it is real and what is not, between reality and the oneiric world; since the beginning we can't distinguish if those things that happen are real or not, and, chapter after chapter, the author gives us the answers, until the episode in wich "all the chicken come home".
What to expect from Marianne?
Marianne is plenty of elements borrowed from other horror films, linked together to create a solid and intriguing storyline. The main influences are Nightmare, the Excorcist, and many others; at a certain point we can see a boy with a yellow raincoat, doesn't this suggest anything to you?
In conclusion, do I recommend this Tv series? I certainly do, but I have to warn everyone who is looking for something splatters or full of jumpscares and twists; this Tv series is slow and you have to watch it till the end to know all the answers.
I recommend it to everyone who wants to see a good product, great attention to the details and to who is in no hurry to finish it.