At the source of criminal minds with «Mindhunter».»

Saturday movie platforms - Jonas Follonier

The birth of FBI profiling of repeat killers. Here's the fascinating marrow to gnaw on Netflix: Mindhunter. The series combines high standards and excellence to highlight yet another complexity in this morbidly beautiful world. I approve.

After watching the trailer for an independent Swiss film under the slightly mischievous advice of my devoted colleague Indra in the mode «you could write about a work of this kind, it would be a change», I had to note that the aforementioned «trailer» didn't legitimize either of these two words. Besides, it's not as if I hadn't written about the art back home...

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Then an idea came to me, as I often have quick and rarely pertinent ones: to write about this series that I've been watching one evening out of seventeen, for about a year now. For me, the occasional escape that is Mindhunter comes up against a characteristic that I soon had in mind, discovering an approach for my Saturday column: I can't watch this series while cooking.

A first indication of the high standards that accompany this cinematic event. Let's just try the pitch: Mindhunter tells the story of how the intuitive Holden Ford (Jonathan Groff) and the rigorous Bill Tench (Holt McCallany), right in the middle of the 60s, initiate an approach within the FBI based on the so-called «behavioral sciences». A special department was created for this purpose. It's no time for golf: the two complementary partners are sent to the basement. And that's the only chance they have to prove themselves.

The core of the script is not complicated in itself, as this short summary attests. And the way the episodes are staged - kudos to the famous David Fincher - is neither obscure nor pedantic. It's deeply aesthetic, effective and intoxicating. The demanding nature of the series is not to be equated with difficulty of access, or even a painful experience for the viewer. Rather, it is to be understood as the quality of the series being such that you don't want to miss a single hundredth of a second. The atmosphere is so evocative, McCallany's smiles so rich, the situations so sensitive.

Hence my little anecdote. Mindhunter can't be watched by halves. This retrospective soap opera is enjoyed with clear eyes and mind, if possible with good acoustics and visuals, and above all with full concentration. It's an enjoyable depiction of what was, after all, a historic moment in the history of American law enforcement, as we follow the challenges of a small team investigating while breaking new ground. Understanding madness so as to be able to anticipate it: a fascinating program for visionary investigators (we owe them the expression «serial killer»), which is enough to create a masterpiece fifty years later.

I could go on for hours about this or that plot, this or that character. But others have done it brilliantly. Convincing those who haven't already done so to take the plunge and watch Mindhunter, This is what had to be done in these pages. For this series is the perfect opportunity for the first among us to get over their old love of’Criminal Minds attributable to their adolescence. It's the equivalent of discovering rock - the real thing - for someone who'd only heard of Sum 41. A whole new world opens up!

Write to the author: jonas.follonier@leregardlibre.com

Photo credit: © Patrick Harbron