The Bureau

A story of a man who is heading for disaster. To write that this is a French response to Homeland (in the style of The Hour / Mad Men) is like keeping saliva in your mouth for a few hours and then spit them onto the face of the creators, but... it is true to some extent, even if we might not like it. The main difference, however, is in the plainness of the concept (it is quite free of big words, gestures and actions) of the view of the operation of the department of recruiting "acquaintances", not only defectors, agents, terrorists, but mostly ordinary people who could potentially have access to interesting/dangerous (dis) information. It's about finding the way to them and controlling them, not about blackmailing them.* Simply put, a daily routine of an uncommon office full of hypocrisy, intrigue, outsmarting others, plotting, looking over your shoulder, paperwork, strict rules in the workplace, nicknames of operatives taken from Tintino and... And yes, it is absolutely cold procedural "lecarréov style movie" in the best possible sense of this word, which is moreover current and not at all black and white. Just an unbelievable believable spy master, where it is often not clear who is a mouse and who is a cat, with nerve-wracking tension stemming from the behavior and subsequent actions of missing people doing their job and what they are damn good at. Not from shootings, murders or impending terrorist attacks. Pragmatic decisions win, not emotion-driven ones. Already the first season had not many competitors in terms of movies with similar quality genre. Not to mention an even better second season, which then does not have too much competition across the entire serial spectrum, regardless of genre boxes. And after all, even the third season does not deviate from the established trend of "absolute quality", although in the last two episodes it contains the germ of something that could be a problem in the future, namely, excessive adherence to one of the lines, which potentially might become flogging a dead horse. Surprisingly, however, the problem of the "weakest" fourth season is not in the above so far. The creators handled that more than well not even in the quality of individual lines (they are on the same level as always), but in connecting it all into one coherent whole. There are three separate story lines. Let´s pretend they complement each other (although the one that looks like a major for a long time and eventually fades away and serves more/perhaps as a possible start for the next season), but one is completely sidelined from start to finish. It´s remote, far from all events, in another place and with different characters. Which, to a large extent, also applies to the fifth season, where the disarray and absent-mindedness is even more noticeable. With the only difference that the main story line is even more highlighted and slightly better. Unusual, however, is the final duo of bittersweet "epilogue" episodes, which close the chapter of one era. It seems, with regard to the building blocks of the series, almost out of place, as if they come from a completely different series (à la Soprano). After all, it is the fault of Audiard and we can clearly that he is the one responsible. But after five seasons, it starts work properly. It is completely justified as a conclusion of one era.* Your real task will be to destroy the lives of people who are not necessarily bad. They are only foreigners who work for their country and have access to information important to our security. People that we call villains just because they live on the opposite side of the border and know the things their government wants to keep secret at all costs. | S1: 5/5 | S2: 5/5 | S3: 5/5 | S4: 4/5 | S5: 5/5 | (03/06/2017) (less) (more)