Martian ( Fassbinder ) drops his girlfriend, Sami Zahir ( Jodie Turner-Smith ), whom he is in love with, and talking about it with his co-worker who tells him only a heartless cold-blooded bastard doesn't feel like a heartless cold-blooded bastard in such a situation.
Pretty good quip.
In other words a psychopath.
One better was in Killing Eve, “You should never tell a psychopath they are a psychopath.”
Could not finish killing Eve, it was too ridiculous. That line has no real ummph to it. A psychopath would not care what anyone else has to say about them.
shareNo big deal. The quote was a great; I remember exactly when he said it. I didn’t finish KE either but the first two seasons were great and much better than this lackluster version of the most perfect The Bureau.
shareTo me the Agency is excellent from the start, and is a slow build to real tension and suspense. I think Fassbinder's best part, and I cannot take my eyes off Jodie Turner-Smith whenever she is onscreen. Jeffrey Wright and Richard Gere and a lot of other actors put to good use.
I have heard that there is a foreign version of this, but I cannot find it to watch it, and I'm not going to buy it.
This is the best spy political thriller series since The Diplomat which is also really good. Another foreign series that is long-winded but really excellent is Okkupert (2016), "Occupation". This is perhaps the most realistic, interesting and compelling geo-political thriller series there is.
I am glad you are enjoying it. It is masterful - probably, to me, the best TV series I have ever seen. They have called it the Second Coming, and it goes on for 5 seasons. Also, the subplots go into overdrive shortly. The creator spent time with a lot of Intelligence agents and you will learn more from this series about intelligence than you will learn anywhere, and the writing and storytelling are magnificent. You will see these characters get into jams and see if and how they get out of it. Part of how their “legend” is created matters, and how their legend has to be so precise and researched because they will be tested. You will also see how it is in other parts of the world - how terrible it is. The Iran story, about to come up, is fascinating. Anyway, I am glad you like it. This version is following it very closely. It’s just that….
I will look into Okkupert - I love Jo Nesbo. Yes to The Diplomat. I like The Americans. I liked certain seasons of Homeland. And Jodie Turner-Smith is mesmerizing; her voice is melodic; her appearance, majestic - actually her character is at the heart of this whole thing, no pun intended. I will say I think in the original, Maltrou and Nadia make a better couple than Martian and Samia - and that is all I will say about that. Also Wright and Gere have created a more nuanced relationship than the original, although Jean-Pierre Darrousin is one of my favorite actors, as is Wright. On another note, in The Day of the Jackal new series, they created a major part of it from second season of Killing Eve. Original of The Day of the Jackal is also a superior book and film but I liked the series very much.
I really like "The Diplomat", but it turns to the screen with humorous winks and some pseudo-slapstick, still it is very good. "The Agency" is both a lot more adult and takes a lot more concentration. I just started going back to the first episode and re-watching it and noticed a few things that I missed - like the depth of Frank's fuck-up ( I think his name was Frank ), The guy who over-sympathized with Coyote and failed to do a proper interrogation leading to putting a lot of other operations at risk. What do they do with someone like Frank who fucked up in his job, but knows too much? Just shuffle him around?
"Occupied" is wider and very much like "The Agency" - and not so much focused on one of a few actors. I am actually surprised that I watched the whole thing because I started it and then dropped it. Then had to wait for nothing else to be on that I wanted to see and finally went back to it, but once I got into it, wow!
Pretty much the same story with "Homeland". When I first watched a few episodes it just seemed like pro-Iraq-war propaganda, and I have to admit that the whole bipolar thing was compelling, but really hard to believe. However, the series was wide-ranging, with great characters and I really got to love it and I think it is one of the best espionage, political, and psychological thrillers ever done. Claire Danes was excellent in it, as were the other actors, but especially the writers.
I take it Jean-Pierre Darrousin was in "The Bureau"?
> It’s just that….
Uh, what?
Character played by Wright was played by Darrousin. Down the road, he has a huge story.
Frank character in the original was there for a second. Cyclone was Coyote in the original and he was a Muslim. It was his religion that prevented him from drinking alcohol and they were in Algiers. You will see what happens in upcoming episodes as this story really escalates.
It’s just that….
It’s just that the original was great. I find this one sluggish. I find a big difference between Fassbender mostly, compared to Kassovitz. It doesn’t resonate with me as much. Also there is too much dialogue that has to explain everything. It’s annoying. Somehow the French version, you just got it faster. But I am so happy you like it and see that it is brilliant. So many posters are obsessed with other things.
It was on Prime Video forever. I wrote a post on MovieChat 5 years ago - has anybody seen this - no one ever responded. The posts do go back 8 years but I think it may not have been subtitled then. I saw four seasons all at once. I think it was on Sundance. I had to wait a year or so for the 5th - always inquiring is there a 5th one - oh please. So it came out and I bought it. The minute The Agency came out, this series was no longer available. I initially found it though because of Spiral (Engregages), a French policier - also great. This may have been on MHZ. Sometimes European stuff (also Nordic Noir) is sooooo much better than American stuff. And the Americans remake it and then you aren’t able to see the original as in the Danish ones - The Killing and The Bridge.
It is always different when you read a book and see it made into a movie. Or you see a great movie and they remake it. I don’t know how long this series will last. Whether they will make it all five seasons and if they change any of it. Especially the finale - which stuck with me for the longest time. We will see. If it doesn’t, then you know. I don’t want to say anything about the original and someday you might see it, but it won’t be the same as seeing it for the first time. I do like the French actress who plays the psychologist so much better than the one in this series. Also, there is nothing like the romance of Malotru and Nadia - nothing.
The first season of Homeland is one in which Brody was supposed to be killed off - but brought back to life by public demand which squandered good seasons after that. Then someone took over and wrote awful episodes where they didn’t bother to watch previous episodes and forgot that Quinn was married with a kid and then made him into a rent boy…. But S1, the part where Carrie is off her meds and storyboards how Brody with this color chart that turned into this rhyming thing - a puzzle in itself - but made perfectly clear because of her brilliant mind that was manic - she was speaking another language in a code with clarity. That “fallow yellow” period coincides directly with Brody’s time with Nazir. The creator of The Bureau liked Homeland, Boardwalk Empire, The Wire.
Where can I stream the original series, Bureau? Also, it is a foreign series, in another language. I would love to watch it, though I tried watching the original series that "Homeland" was based on and it just did not grab me.
shareI realize no one will ever make a series to my prescription, or any one person's, and that if they base it on a book or another series it has to be different because no one wants to see the exact same thing with no differences.
I noticed this thankfully with the Apple series "Silo". I read the books ... very long read and epic story, but I had my issues with it, but it is great and wonderfully subversive. I would say for media stuff, subversive is my favorite element that makes something more than entertaining nonsense into something literary and meaningful. Like the last seasons of "Homeland". I think with the AM radio guy and the troll farm - I really think there are things like that going on and what a good series like "Homeland" does is to open someone's mind who is ... awake ( forgive the expression, woke ;-) ) the concept of what could be very easily happening. It completely surprised me that "Homeland" was something like the opposite of what it seemed like inititally to me.
Maybe I am not remembering "Homeland" but I'm wondering what you mean by the color chart and fallow yellow?
I've seen "The Killing" and started watching "The Bridge". In general I really like foreign movies/series. That started way way back in high school when I had a girlfriend who turned me on to foreign movies, and back when the original "Sneak Previews" Siskel and Ebert were on I started liking what they now call Indie movies, and foreign movies, etc.
Have you ever watched "Fortitude" or "Trapped"?
You cannot stream Le Bureau des Légendes to the best of my knowledge and this is to be expected because of the airing of The Agency. It’s been out there for at least 8 years for people to see and not many in the US saw it. It is in French and most people cannot read or do not like subtitles.
I hope when you when you say The Killing and The Bridge that you mean the original Danish ones Forbrydelsen (The Killing) and Bron/Broen. I was lucky years ago that someone on IMDB downloaded the 3 seasons of Forbrydelsen (The Killing) for me as it ended up taking 10 years to get here (US). It was an unbelievable watch. US The Killing was very good but the poor writer Veena Sud had so many problems with AMC who at the time was banking on Breaking Bad and even Matthew Weiner had trouble with AMC with his show Mad Men. The first 3 seasons (S1 and S2 belong together) of the American The Killing were great but AMC sabotaged the series. The Bridge - American version - in my opinion was not that good. But the Danish/Swedish one is superb (Bron/Broen). There have been other versions since - the British/French one is The Tunnel and there is also a German/Austrian which is sooo weird you can stream called Pagan Peak and excellent. Talk about dark and subversive. This one is recent. But some of these were revolutionary when they came out and that was many years ago. They are still considered legendary - mostly in UK and Europe - but a lot of time has passed.
I saw Trapped which is Icelandic. Loved it - loved the actor who was also in The Widow - a good series with Kate Beckinsale in South Africa. Fortitude - in English. Great. There are more like this out there. I have seen most foreign ones. The best are: French - The Bureau and Spiral; Russian - Dead Mountain and The Method. Usually done by Walter Presents on MHz and PBS. Spanish. Portuguese. Bulgarian. Polish. German. Austrian. Slovenian. Finnish. Norwegian. It goes on. There are great Korean ones on Netflix and Prime Video. I can’t think of all of them. So many.
Part 2 follows.
Part 2.
I know the part you are talking about with Jake Webber in Homeland- that was S6 and S7. I didn’t like it that much. I also didn’t like Brody’s daughter - last season was very good and they ended on a good note but some of the ones in between weren’t that good.
When Homeland went from very good to great was in S1, “The Vest”, next to last episode. Carrie is off her rocker and triggers this response from the use of a green pen while in a facility. “Saul, my green pen is dry. Is green elusive? I mean, my kingdom for a f—-g green pen.” And she just spins into alliteration because she realizes the whole timeline and what is about to happen that no one else sees. Her rant: “He’s a part, a pawn, a pixel, pernicious. We have to collide it, collapse it, contain it. We have to hop to, haul ass. Nazir’s movements in green after a fallow yellow always creeping towards purple are methodical, meaningful, momentous and monstrous.” And she maps it out on her wall by color. Total full blown manic episode but she is the one who sees the sniper attack as a sideshow for the ultimate attack about to come. Best performance award winning.
You know Homeland was adapted from a famous Israeli series. They’re nothing alike. But it is about soldiers who return home.
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