D.fter the good response of the share of the first episode, Germinal – Italian-French miniseries based on the novel of the same name by Emile Zola – come back tonight at 21.20 on Rai 3.
Set in the North of France, it tells of a group of miners fighting for their rights during the second French industrial revolution, at the end of the 19th century. But the strength and modernity of the story make it very current even today.
Germinal: the previews of the second episode
After the accident with little Jeanlinwhich left him disfigured, the strike promoted by Étienne Lantier (Louis Peres) is in his most excited phase. However, the workers must also fight against another enemy: hunger. The group’s meager savings are running out, and also the cruel Bressan threatens dismissal if you don’t go back to the mine right away.
Faced with the fear of losing your job, some miners decide to surrenderas in the case of Chaval (Jonas Bloque), Étienne’s rival, who forces Catherine (Rose-Marie Perrault) to follow him.
Actor Louis Peres in a scene from “Germinal”. (Photo by Sarah Alcalay – FTV – Banijay)
A few days later, down in the mine the strikers destroy the plants, forcing the miners to reach the surface. The minds are incandescent and the acts of vandalism – despite the fear of being discovered by the gendarmerie – they continue throughout the area. Leading the operations the anarchist Souvarine who claims that the only way out is the entire destruction of the mines.
Meanwhile, the antagonism between Étienne and Chaval reaches its peak, but when Catherine steps in to defend Chaval, Étienne, still very much in lovehe seems to abandon any desire for revolt to let himself go to despair.
The importance of female characters
For David Hourrègue and Julien Liltidirector and screenwriter of the series, the main goal in adapting the pages of Zola was to give the characters new lymph. Freeing them from their archetypes. Especially with regards to the female ones of Catherine and her mother La Maheude. Women united by the desire for redemption and rebellion, but with different sensitivities.
Each with its subjectivity and its importance, too political and social. An attention that has almost made the authors overlook the male charactersthe.
Rose-Marie Perreault is Catherine. (Photo by Sarah Alcalay – FTV – Banijay)
Other changes made to the novel: the age of Catherine. In the book the girl he is 15, while in the TV series he is 19. A choice, as the producer Carole Della Valle told Allocinédictated by the desire to limit the brutal violence and abuse to a minor. Not that at the age of twenty it is acceptable, frankly speaking.
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