Oriental plain: polar polyphonies (critic)
Welcome to Corsica in this new mafia series of Canal +, which plays on several paintings with strength and mastery.
If you go in the vicinity of Bastia, on the coast of eastern Corsica, you will be in Oriental plain !
It is there, between sea and mountains, that Pierre Leccia posed the decor of his new series. The creator of Mafiosa is back on Canal + for a new original creation where family loyalty, justice and crime are fading in the burning dust of an indomitable territory. Broadcast since May 26, Oriental plain follows the fate of a brother and a sister. Reda comes out of prison. He spent 10 years there to protect members of his clan. And when he covers his freedom, he discovers that his half-sister Inès has just been appointed to the anti-mafia pole in Bastia. Any young investigating judge, she hopes to use her network to climb the levels of the magistracy by bringing the elusive César Carlottithe local godfather, who puts his hands on the public markets.
Which could have been just a simple mafia thriller in reality in a tragedy Shakespearean captivating. Because Oriental plain speaks as much about justice as belonging. Reda, rejected by his Corsican friends as by his Arab roots, wanders between two irreconcilable identities. Inès, she wants to impose herself in the life of a brother who refuses her, in a world where power is only won threatened, questionable alliances and guilty silences. In this worrying painting, Lina El Arabi is perfect as a young judge with long teeth in front of the charismatic Raphaël Acloque. The series explores the idea of identity and belonging, through fraternal links, and is played at the crossroads of the judicial thriller and the family drama.
At the same time, Pierre Leccia A successful painting of Corsican banditry (its thugs, its accounts, its rigged markets) succeeds without being afraid of caricature. The word “mafia” is no longer taboo – and the Corsican accents, omnipresent, reinforce the feeling of total immersion, even if it means navigating the wire of the cliché.
But the screenwriter and director avoids pitfall, by injecting into his breathtaking police mechanics of real human and social issues: the fracture between generations, the weight of origins, loyalty to the clan. Oriental plain Impression by its narrative density, its territorial anchoring and the quality of its almost entirely Corsican cast. A tense work that will keep you going until the end of the season.
Plaine Orientale, season 1 in 8 episodes, to see on Canal since May 26, at the rate of 2 episodes every Monday.
