FictionalCities :: Commissario Brunetti

Commissario Brunetti - the TV Series German TV adaptations of Donna Leon's Brunetti novels have been running since 2000. I'd long been frustrated by the German DVDs having no English subtitles when in early 2009 I had my (atheist's) prayers answered by a mystery donor of seven subtitled episodes. Each German season has two episodes and each episode runs for a satisfying 90 minutes. The actors playing Brunetti and his wife change four episodes in. The first four of the subtitled episodes below were aired by Washington TV station MHz. Almost all of the Brunetti novels have now been filmed by the Germans. In early 2009 Donna Leon was telling audiences at signings that she was in talks with the BBC about making new Brunetti adaptations. Nothing came of this, supposedly because of the BBC's decision to film Michael Dibdin's Zen novels instead. The fact that these latter adaptations where not deemed a success, ratings wise, by the BBC will presumably put the kibosh on any future filming of the Brunetti series. Donna L. is very witty on the weaknesses of the German adaptations here. Now in 2011 MHz networks have released the first eight subtitled episodes with two DVDs, containing an episode each, in each box. (Click here for details. I should mention that being American the DVDs are Region 1 and will only play on an American or multi-region DVD player. Or if you watch on your computer there is free software that'll make your PC region-free.) And I now have them, thanks to a friend in LA - MHz don't ship abroad, you see, but Amazon can be a way around this. The US DVDs usually stick to the book titles rather than using the German episode titles, except the first one, so I've done the same. Hot news update 8.1.2012 MHz Networks in the US will be showing the next seven subtitled episodes on their Sunday Night International Mystery program starting next week. These follow on from the eight already shown and released last year on DVD. Episodes 10 and 11 I've already reviewed below, and I have hopes of catching the others. The first four of this new batch (9-12) have been released on DVD now (24.1.2012)
1. Vendetta 2000 This was the first in the series and is adapted from the novel A Venetian Reckoning (aka Death and Judgment). The plot involves the murder of a lawyer, people trafficking and snuff movies. To begin with the actor playing Brunetti (Joachim Król) seems a bit too cuddly, and he never really casts off this fluffy aura for me, although he does toughen up a bit towards the end. Overall the adaptation impressively retains the realism, not to say cynicism, of the novels. I found the rest of the cast convincing, but I didn't picture the fascinating Signorina Elettra as quite this young and attractive. The music grates a bit occasionally, overdoing the jaunty music when Brunetti's at home, for example, and the discordant chords when someone's unhappy answering a question, thereby rather over-emphasising the tension. There's a satisfying amount of real Venice on show, although the usual poetically-licensed leaping around Venice between cuts is not unusual. The Brunetti family home is authentically located very close to where they live in the books and so they eat on a large terrace on the corner of the Rio San Polo with a spectacular view across the Grand Canal. Also the ex-convent in front of San Francesco della Vigna stands in inauthentically as the police headquarters building (see above right) which is actually opposite the church of San Lorenzo. Having so long looked forward to seeing one of these I was not disappointed, and have been left keenly anticipating the next one...
	2. The Anonymous Venetian 2000 The second adaptation again deals with a murder in Mestre, this time it's a transvestite found out back of an abattoir. Again it's a quality piece of work, reminiscent of the TV adaptations of the Inspector Morse stories with their subtlety and emotional depth. Brunetti differs from Morse in that his life is centred on his family, and that's well brought out here, with the scenes between Brunetti and his wife serving to do more than just précis plot developments. I still found the music intrusive at times, and there's lots of Venice and lots of liberties with location again too. A swoop on a flat said to be in San Barnaba sees the police launches heading away from the vicinity of Rio San Barnaba and heading towards the North side of the Accademia Bridge and ending up in a block of apartments just off the Strada Nova near the railway station! Also everyone's home and office, no matter where it's positioned, has a grand sweeping view of the Grand Canal. And as for the Brunetti's plush flat and its modest little terrace...(see left).
3. Fatal Remedies 2002 The third adaptation jumps forward a few novels. This is the one where Paola, Brunetti's wife, chucks a rock through a travel agent's window to protest his involvement in sex tourism and the encouragement of child prostitution. The plot develops into murder and associated nastiness involving the murder-victim's pharmaceutical factory. So more filming in Mestre, as the Venetian islands tend not to have many factory complexes. In Venice the travel agent's premises are in the campo in front of San Nicolo da Tolentino and the church's portico shelters Brunetti and Paola whilst they have a heated discussion following the discovery of the murder victim. The Palazzo Molin (the one with the garden, opposite the Palazzo Barbaro) is used as the home of the victim, and his wife (right). It seems to me that there are no wrong feet placed anywhere here - even the music behaves itself and settles into suitability this time, so I have no grounds for quibbles. Except...I'm still worried by the plushness of the Brunettis' apartment. Could a Commissario and a teacher really afford to live somewhere this grand, overlooking the Grand Canal?
	4. A noble radiance 2002 This is the last episode with cuddly Joachim Król as Brunetti (pictured on the right in the picture left - the other one's Vianello). It begins with a discovery of bones which reopens an old kidnapping case. The wealthy family involved turn out to have plenty of skeletons too, and things get messy, of course. Emotions are stirred up, and the acting gets more intense, in the Brunetti family too, as Guido's father-in-law accuses him neglecting Paola. A bit more variety of emotion for the actors playing Brunetti and Paola to get their teeth into, as I say, just before they get the sack. Plenty of Venice, as usual, but nothing special to report on as far as locations or location-gaffs are concerned. Me, I noticed more crane shots.
5. Death at La Fenice 2003 New season, new actor playing Brunetti - Uwe Kockisch (see right). There's a new actress playing his wife too, which is just as well as otherwise it would have felt like adultery; but she's not as immediately convincing as the previous Paola. For the story we jump right back in the novel sequence to the very first Brunetti novel. A famous conductor is murdered mid-performance at the Fenice opera house and Brunetti is then pushed relentlessly by Patta due to the height of the case's profile. There's a lesbian element and some accusations of child abuse in a plot which has the quiet subtlety and inter-plot echoes of Ms Leon's maturer stuff. The new Brunettis were a bit of a shock, but leaving only a day between watching this and the previous episode made matters more disturbing than would have been the case with the real gap of a year between seasons. We'll see. The other actors are all the same as previously. Location wise the highlights are the shiny palazzo interiors this time, with a squalid 'real' interior and the home of someone who's merely very wealthy.	Signorina Elettra's office near San Francesco della Vigna, with its miraculous view of San Samuele.
	6. Friends in High Places 2003 The one where a city official tells Brunetti that his flat is liable to demolition if planning permission documents can't be found, and then gets himself murdered. There's also Patta's son fingered for drug dealing and Brunetti's extreme fear for his daughter in a world full of drugs. And two more murders. So, as you can see, the novel that this is based on is from back in the days when Donna liked to have lots of plots, unlike later character-based books when there sometimes doesn't even seem to be one. On screen there's loads of Venice, of course, and mostly geographical liberties are not taken, at least with the walks and the boat trips. The ex-convent in front of San Francesco della Vigna still stands in for the Questura HQ, and the windows from the offices within still miraculously look out onto the Grand Canal, which is miles away. I don't know if the supposed interior staircase is actually in that building, but it sure is pretty The offices of the Venice planning department are sited in the pseudo-gothic apartment block on the way to the Sant'Angelo vaporetto stop. You can tell it's the planning department because every time its shown a person with a long tube of plans comes out (see below left). The scaffolding-covered building that's supposed to be apartments is actually the back of the Ca' Foscari University building, which is why there are so many students in the background. The final shooty showdown in a flat by the Frari even keeps its location authenticity for the interior, um, shots. Impressive. The German/Italian jarring I noticed this time is having the German-speaking cast saying buon giorno.
7. Quietly in Their Sleep 2004 The novel is called Death of Faith in the UK, which title better indicates a story very much to do with religion, organised and personal. A nun from the home where Brunetti's mother is staying comes to him with accusations that the recent deaths of residents there are not accidents. She then gets pushed under a bus, and Brunetti starts to investigate. Other strands see Brunetti's daughter flirting with organised religion, much to her parents disapproval, under the influence of a handsome teacher-priest. There's also a visit by a Swiss policeman who is much in sympathy with Brunetti, but who doesn't appear in the original book at all. The light-relief he provides is of a piece with the other, considerable, changes from the book that have been made in this episode. In fact let's make a list: 1. The Swiss policeman already mentioned 2. Brunetti's mother's Alzheimer's has been written out, so she becomes a sweet, if self-willed, old charmer and is featured much more. 3. The mysterious and suspicious Opus Dei, in real life and the book, becomes the fictional Opera Pio, for some cowardly reason. 4. Their sinister reach makes for a different ending from the book for the run-down nun, which I'll not risk spoiling your viewing by revealing. 5. In the book there are two wicked priests, one of whom doesn't make it to the film 6. The young, attractive and fanatically-religious daughter of one of the elderly victims is a woman in her 50s in the book. 7. In the book the nun is knocked off her bike by a car. 8. In the final showdown Brunetti gets a knife wound in the book, not shot. In location developments the interiors of the police headquarters have all changed since the last episode. The staircase (pictured above), offices and views from the windows have all changed, although the building's exterior remains the ex-convent in front of San Francesco della Vigna. There are more geographically impossible leaps between cuts this time too, with corners turned jumping from Dorsoduro to Cannaregio, and then back. A Character enters the Gesuiti church near the beginning, but the church interior used after she enters is San Francesco della Vigna itself. And I have to just mention the nun getting hit by a bus. The action takes place on the Lido, as Venice itself has so few roads, presumably, but she actually gets run down by a black van. Maybe Actv weren't willing to loan the film makers a bus, or have it involved in attempted murder, but why the characters have to still keep calling it a bus beats me too. And then there's the nursing home, with it's garden facing onto the Grand Canal, (see right) where no nursing home could afford to be, surely. With thanks to Carlo & Richard for spotting the plot changes.	Is it ever this busy up by the Gesuiti,
	8. Acqua Alta 2004 The lesbian couple from Episode 5. Death at La Fenice turn up again, but this time it's the unconvincingly named Brett Lynch, the art expert, who is in trouble, She's discovered that a pair of valuable vases due to be returned to China after an exhibition have been swapped with forgeries. She gets beaten up to stop her telling the museum curator, and when Brunetti starts following the trail of partners and money people start getting murdered. And the plot starts unravelling. This one is just so full of plot-holes and people behaving stupidly and out of character that soon all you're doing is admiring the water-filled streets. There's some sub-plot involving Brunetti's wife doing up their flat (and the daughter getting a gross injured toe) that seems to have nothing to do with anything, apart from maybe continuing the smashed vase motif. I've not read the book that this one's based on, but either Donna L. was having an off day, or the plot here has been vilely mangled. Some nice palazzo interiors, but otherwise nothing special location-wise. Except maybe the bizarre end-titles film of a Ferrovia vaporetto stop chuntering under the Rialto Bridge (see left).
9. Doctored Evidence 2005 An old woman is murdered, and suspicion falls on her Romanian cleaning woman. The suspect is inefficiently almost-nabbed at the railway station and falls to her death, into the canal in front of Sant'Andrea della Zirada, before the monorail was built (see right). (This church also gets some gentle floodlighting in a later scene, like it never does in real life.) As Brunetti is in England for his hols his boss Patta 'solves' the case, so that when Brunetti returns he has to get to the truth - a process far from simple. The hateful character of the old woman is a factor and there's corruption aplenty, involving false qualifications amongst other things. There's also a cringe-making sub-plot involving Brunetti's son Raffi falling for his sister's Japanese penpal. Much of the filming is up in Cannaregio this time, although the murdered woman's house is just down from the San Barnaba fruit and veg boat. In an interview accompanying the broadcast of this episode Uwe Kockisch, the actor who plays Brunetti, reveals the difficulties of filming in a city full of tourists and that getting permission to film is a problem and so when they get it they tend to film all they can in that area, which explains this episode's Cannaregio-centric nature, including a scene supposedly showing the Brunettis arriving home filmed up there too, where we all know they live in San Polo by the Rialto.	The cloister of ?
	10. Uniform Justice 2005 This one is based on the novel which dealt with a 'suicide' at a military academy. It moves the action to the naval school in the Arsenale and so we get some authentic peeks into the Arsenale complex. (But the interior dormitory corridor was actually filmed in the San Giorgio Maggiore complex.) We also get a plot mixing homophobia and high-level corruption, with another unremembered subplot, but this time it does echo the main plot, being to do with Raffi shadowing his father at work and so adding a bit of extra depth to the underlying theme of father-son relationships. The other sub-sub-plot, involving Vianello's plans for a museum of Venetian crime, makes somewhat less sense. Another negative is that the military bullying being conducted mostly in shouted German makes for some unfortunate Nazi overtones, but that's probably due to my Brit background watching old war films on TV as a child. As this is my last one to watch I'll sum up by saying that these episodes have all been eminently watchable and enjoyable, with good location content and not too many liberties taken. Although on the picky location-mangling front, this one does have the Brunetti's entering their flat's front door up in Cannaregio, when it's aforementioned grand terrace overlooks the Grand Canal near San Polo far to the South East.
11. Death in a Strange Country 2006 With the passing of the years there's a certain slickness creeping in, with a tendency towards gratuitous misty and touristy sunrises and sunsets bracketing each day's action. In the novel sequence we're back to the second Brunetti novel. It's the one with the dead American soldier and the rich crook friend of Brunetti's rich father-in-law and his shady toxic waste business. Although one doubts he's as smart as he makes out if he dumps the barrels of nasty stuff but doesn't bother to paint out the words 'US Army' stencilled on the side. Having American characters only adds to the weird language and translation decisions and dislocations. Having German-speaking Italian characters is odd enough, but when the characters switch between Italian greetings and colloquialisms and German ones and, as here, you get 'American' soldiers speaking English with a German accent the mind becomes truly mangled. Geography gets a bit mangled too with a meeting 'in front of the Arsenale' actually taking place behind the Scuola di San Rocco. Also when Signorina Elettra goes to sit on the balustrade outside her office (see left) the canal outside switches from the usually-viewed stretch of Grand Canal to a side canal. This seems to be the Fondamenta di Soccorso, as the series also uses the Palazzo Zenobio androne for some interiors of the questura. But the nasty industrialist's palazzo (Loredan) is consistently dealt with, having all approaches, departures and views matching up with reality. The plot is played fast-and-loose with, though, acquiring a dramatic chase across rooftops, for example, and an un-Leonishly neat surprise resolution. There's also a 'humourous' subplot involving Brunetti's son Raffi setting himself up in business selling some umbrellas with pink elephants on that his grandmother has inherited. I don't remember this from the book, and it's not what you'd call a clever reflection of the main plot. So, slicker this time, as I say, but still satisfying entertainment.
12. A Sea of Troubles 13. Wilful Behaviour 14. Blood from a Stone 15. Through a Glass Darkly Reviews coming February/March.