WITNESSES/LES TÉMOINS - SERIES 2 (FRENCH REGION 2 DVD)

[Spoiler-Free] 15 dead men are found frozen in a stolen bus on a country road of the north of France. The bodies were manicured, their hair done and they were elegantly dressed after their death. Those men all disappeared three years ago and all loved the same woman at some point.

This woman vanished around the same period... until now. The second series of French crime drama Witnesses (Les Témoins) is now available in France on DVD thanks to Koba Films.

Two years after the first series of Les Témoins, police detective Sandra Winckler (Marie Dompnier) and her colleague Justin (Jan Hammenecker) are back for another conundrum written by Hervé Hadmar (who also directs) and Marc Herpoux, the duo behind Signature, Pigalle, la nuit and Les Oubliées. Thierry Lhermitte, who brilliantly escaped the antics of the French Doc Martin with his role as the enigmatic Paul Maisonneuve in the first series, doesn't return. Audrey Fleurot (A French Village, Spiral) co-stars alongside Marie Dompnier as the even more mysterious Catherine Keemer.

« Les enfants, aux yeux des folles mères,
Vont se briser la tête sur les pierres. »

Catherine, the common denominator between the 15 frozen victims in the bus, suddenly resurfaces in her car after three years. Totally amnesiac, she's found in the street asking "Il est où?" A furnished studio flat, a poem by Auguste Barbier (1805-1882), a woman in a psychiatric hospital since 1979, and a place called "La Colline du Diable" are amongst the first elements of this case. And there are similarities with troubling events which happened years ago. Sandra Winckler has a problem with her elder daughter and she chooses to play a dangerous game of cat and mouse. Catherine Keemer has her own child related issue. Like the tagline of this new series says: "Love is the greatest danger".

Aired between March and April 2015 on French pubcaster France 2, the first series of Les Témoins (6 X 52-minute) caught an average of 4.3m viewers. The creation of Hervé Hadmar and Marc Herpoux also raised a huge interest abroad with sales in several territories like Germany, Belgium, Norway, Australia, Poland or the United Kingdom, where Channel 4 aired it as Witnesses. France 2 commissioned a 8-episode second series. In between, Hadmar and Herpoux did the miniseries Beyond the Walls (Au-delà des murs) for Arte. With Witnesses 2 the writers took advantage of the series' longer run to jeopardize, little by little, the sanity of their heroines in the psychological labyrinth of a manipulative "Minotaur".

Filming took place between March and August 2016 during 96 days,  in the Hauts-de-France region and at the Mont-Saint-Michel. Marie Dompnier, who worked mainly on stage before Les Témoins and won a Golden Fipa award for the role of Sandra Winckler, expands her character with an infinite subtlety. Audrey Fleurot is (of course) excellent and the talented Belgian actor Jan Hammenecker gets more presence as the likeable Justin, a role he first played in Signature. Justin lives with Mélanie (returning actress Florence Bolufer) and he's joined by his teenage son Fabien (Gwendal Marimoutou), who lived with his mother in La Réunion until then. They celebrate Christmas in March and Justin has a funny scene with a fridge.

Judith Henry replaces Catherine Mouchet as Sandra and Justin's boss Maxine Dubreuil. Éric Winckler is now played by Guillaume Durieux (instead of Mehdi Nebbou). The performances of Yannick Choirat as Geir Jansen, Anne Benoît (Christiane Varène), and Séverine Vincent as Audrey Solange, are particularly praiseworthy. Also starring Steve Driesen (Olivier Keemer), Dominique Bettenfeld (Martin Souriau), Alexandre Carrière (Fred), British-Canadian actor Philip Desmeules as Antoine Barrier, Nina Simonpoli-Barthelemy (Chloé Winckler), Héloïse Dugas (Louise Keemer), Lila Gueneau Lefas (Léa Keemer), Serge Merlin as Atticus Lorcat, etc.

The writers depart from the previous series' format but the mystery remains effective and gripping. Hervé Hadmar's always stylish direction is impressively atmospheric. The locations are incredible. There's a small (clever) change at the end of the title sequence, still accompanied by Tricky's haunting We don't die (2013). Witnesses is produced by Cinétévé with France Télévisions and Pictanovo (Les petits meurtres d'Agatha Christie), with the support of Région Hauts-de-France and the participation of SBS-TV Australia. Fabienne Servan-Schreiber and Jean-Pierre Fayer are the producers. Jean-Marc Abbou is the production manager.

Music composed by Éric Demarsan. Jean-Max Bernard is the cinematographer. Distributed by Newen Distribution (Spiral). The first couple of episodes of Les Témoins 2, aired on March 15, caught an average of 3.4m viewers (14.2%). Versus Grey's Anatomy on TF1 during its whole run, the series ended with 2.5m viewers (10.6%). Koba Films releases Series 2 of Witnesses in a 3-disc DVD set.

http://www.kobafilms.fr/series-tv/552-les-temoins-saison-2-3344428067588.html 
 
See also:

http://tattard2.blogspot.fr/2015/04/witnesses-les-temoins-french-region-2.html (Series 1 - DVD Review)