Although I was entertained by the show, I found it odd to see French-speaking characters, be they French or Canadians, talk among themselves in English with an affected Francophone accent. If the producers can make the German characters talk among themselves in their native language, why couldn't this same treatment be offered to Francophones?
shareHI Anhkhoido,
That's a really great question. There was a lot of thought that went into it. Most of the action takes place in France, and all the people are speaking French most of the time. There is a hard reality to North American series that the majority of people don't like subtitles and we tried to go for as wide an audience as possible.
So it was decided that "entre nous" ie: when the team is speaking either English or French to each other, you hear it in English. when they're speaking French, the audience 'hears' English with a slight French accent.
Since the Germans are the occupiers, and the various members of the team have various degrees of fluency in German (from little to fluent) German is instead subtitled.
In the English language adaptation of 19deux, the Quebec policier show that is 19two in the English version, they pull a similar narrative trick. If you notice all the documents and newspapers are in French, but the cops even though they seem to be speaking English -- aren't...they're actually speaking French, you just hear it in English.
It's a storytelling trope that you just have to accept, and it's made to make the material accessible to the widest possible audience. It is a deliberate choice so that 90% of the show doesn't have to be subtitled.
(PS - I did work on the show, and I was particularly taken by this Q, but I'm not as a rule going to be answering every question posted here. This one just struck my fancy. Don't worry haters, you can still fulfill your IMDB board destiny :))
How about weighing in on these questions:
- in the bell tower scene, were they radioing across the Atlantic or to a European relay station?
- are the characters getting their commands directly from Camp X in Canada, or are they being commanded from somewhere else a d merely receiving those commands via Camp X?
I wonder whether you or your colleagues have any interest in answering the question I asked in this thread: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4338336/board/nest/240709081 Are the team genuine heroes? Or are they war criminals?
In today's world, where we are very concerned over underground groups that feel entitled to use violence against public institutions, I think it is important to recognize that the heroic acts we saw our heroes carry out in episode 1.1 would be called war crimes without a second thought if they were committed today, by underground ISIS members, or Russian agents in Ukraine.
I would be very curious as to whether you remembered anyone involved in creating the show gave any thought to whether it was a good idea to make heroes of people carrying out tasks we denounce when committed today?
Thanks!
Feel free to answer here, or there: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4338336/board/nest/240709081
I have no connection to the show, but your suggestion that French Resistance fighters or Allied agents might be war criminals is ridiculous. On their own soil the French were fighting a declared war against a vicious occupying army of Germans who had invaded their country without any provocation whatsoever. Killing soldiers in uniform (not prisoners or civilians) in a war is not a war crime and they were indeed heroes fighting against Nazi oppression (and genocidal murderers of millions of innocent civilians).
Terrorists murdering civilians is completely different. The Germans did execute Resistance fighters and Allied agents. A soldier wearing the enemy's uniform would expect to be executed by either side. The POWs who tried to escape in the Great Escape wore their own uniforms made to look like civilian clothes. Hitler ordered 50 executed. Those who carried out these orders were later found to be war criminals for executing POWs who had the legitimate right to try to escape.
In the first show agents were seen to put on German uniforms and fight. Yes, they could expect to be executed for this, but as agents they would be tortured and killed anyway if they were caught and sometimes carried cyanide tablets.
I think you are trying to make a point that "heroes" are considered to be those fighting on "our" side, but in the case of the Nazis there is no moral relativity there. The Nazis were evil. Defeating the Nazis saved Europe. A terrorist killing civilians is in no way a moral equivalent.
I have no connection to the show, but your suggestion that French Resistance fighters or Allied agents might be war criminals is ridiculous.You might think it is ridiculous -- if you haven't read the Geneva Conventions.
On their own soil the French were fighting a declared war against a vicious occupying army of Germans who had invaded their country without any provocation whatsoever.Wrong. France surrendered. So France was not fighting a declared war.
Killing soldiers in uniform (not prisoners or civilians) in a war is not a war crime...Provided the person attacking those soldiers:
... and they were indeed heroes fighting against Nazi oppression (and genocidal murderers of millions of innocent civilians).French resistance and SOE agents are routinely characterized as heroes. But I suggest it is a mistake to overlook that their engagement in hostilities were always war crimes.
The POWs who tried to escape in the Great Escape wore their own uniforms made to look like civilian clothes.That was a wild stretch. Once you have modified your uniform sufficiently it can pass as a set of civilian clothes it is no long a "fixed distinctive marking, visible from a distance".
I think you are trying to make a point that "heroes" are considered to be those fighting on "our" side...Wrong.
... but in the case of the Nazis there is no moral relativity there.I repeat, we all learned in nursery school, "two wrongs don't make a right". share
You seem really hung up on the term "war crimes" as if the SS gave two bits about killing innocent people. Excuse me, Adolf, but according to my copy of the Geneva Convention, you can't do that, sorry. Canadian prisoners in uniform were executed at Falaise by the SS. Yes, it would be a wonderful world if everybody played fair like a schoolyard with two wrongs not making a right. Have you ever been to a concentration camp? I have.
Yes, part of France surrendered at the point of a gun. Are you suggesting the Free French, I,250,000 soldiers by the end of the war, were all "war criminals" and not "at war"? Are you saying the 24,000 French Resistance fighter killed to save their country from Nazi oppression were war criminals? Again I use the word ridiculous. Yes, they died HEROES. I dare you to go to a monument in Paris and spout that "war crimes" nonsense.
The escaping POWs from Stalag 111 (The Great Escape)did NOT engage in hostilities. They were merely escaping and therefore it was a war crime to execute these 50 men who were following their duty to try to escape. Six brave Canadians were executed. Whether they wore identifying uniforms is not relevant since they did not fight. All officers have the right and duty to try to escape. (My father was in the RCAF and I have talked to RCAF flyers who were at Stalag 111, the camp for Allied flying officers.)The Luftwaffe who ran Stalag 111 knew this and respected this. It was Hitler and the SS who carried out the war crime and were rightly tried and convicted and executed for their role in the deaths.
X Company is a fictional show. Do you have evidence of Allied agents wearing German uniforms and fighting (which happens a lot in movies)? The female agent on the show was trying to prevent a village from being wiped out. Wouldn't you do the same to save your own people? By your by-the-book reckoning the German officers who tried to kill Hitler would be called war criminals??
I once worked for a man who had been an Allied agent behind enemy lines in Italy. He helped partisans smuggle a mini-sub and a jet engine out of Italy. He came close to assassinating Fascist leader Benito Mussolini. He killed with his bare hands and was so troubled by his experiences killing a man up close that he became a minister after the war. Yes, killing is wrong, but without those brave men and women where would Europe be today?
Evil like the Nazis does not say please and excuse me. The Resistance fighters and agents played a vital part in the Normandy invasion. How dare you say they were war criminals.
You seem really hung up on the term "war crimes"...Two things concern me.
Yes, part of France surrendered at the point of a gun.Sorry, incorrect, Petain was the legitimate leader of all of France, all French colonies, and all France's military. I beleive that by all the diplomatic tests of diplomatic legitimacy, the armistice he agreed to applied to all of France.
Are you suggesting the Free French, I,250,000 soldiers by the end of the war, were all "war criminals" and not "at war"?Soldiers of DeGaulle's Free France would have fulfilled the criteria to be considered lawful combatants, if they (1) had a chain of command; (2) wore a distinctive marking, or a uniform; (3) carried their weapons openly; (4) didn't commit atrocities, or engage in perfidy. I thought I explained this already.
Are you saying the 24,000 French Resistance fighter killed to save their country from Nazi oppression were war criminals?I am not a lawyer. I think any resistance fighter who didn't actually engage in hostilities, who was executed anyhow, should not have been considered eligible for a war crimes trial.
It was Hitler and the SS who carried out the war crime and were rightly tried and convicted and executed for their role in the deaths.Some members of the Allies' forces also committed war crimes. See Leo Szilard's short story, "My trial as a war criminal". Some Nazis, like Skorzeny, were acquitted. Some Nazis, like Werner von Braun, were not only not tried, were lionized.
Do you have evidence of Allied agents wearing German uniforms and fighting...I think we both know that SOE shipped many sten guns and other weapons to France, and that SOE agents, and some members of Resistance did use them to engage in hostilities.
By your by-the-book reckoning the German officers who tried to kill Hitler would be called war criminals??Actually, no. I am not a lawyer, but I have read arguments that since Hitler was German and they were German, the Third Reich should have tried them under its domestic laws against murder, treason, etc.
He came close to assassinating Fascist leader Benito Mussolini.And if he had pretended to be an innocent civilian to get that close he would merit being charged with a war crime.
Yes, killing is wrong, but without those brave men and women where would Europe be today?German defeat was inevitable, once the USA entered the war. The Germans may have made better tanks that the Americans, may have been the first to field jet fighters, cruise missiles, or ballistic missiles, but the Americans could build 100 Shermans to every Tiger or Panther tank, so German defeat was inevitable, without resorting to war crimes.
The Resistance fighters and agents played a vital part in the Normandy invasion.German defeat was inevitable, once the USA entered the war, because the USA could build 100 Shermans to every Tiger or Panther tank.
It is good to know that the defeat of the Axis powers was "inevitable" as if it was just going to happen. Tell that to the people at Auschwitz or Stalingrad. In 1941 or 1942 or 1943 there was nothing "inevitable" about the outcome. Britain was desperate and came very close to defeat. France was defeated and occupied. It was hardly a "peace" agreement between Germany and France, but a surrender. You neglected to mention that Petain would be tried and convicted and sentenced to death (commuted to life in prison)for TREASON.
You are probably the only person in the world who is worried that a fictional TV show about World War Two is going to turn young people into Jihadists. So far in two episodes the agents have gone out of their way to avoid/prevent any civilian deaths. They are clearly acting to try to save lives. Almost all the Resistance activity (and that of the Allied agents) involved strategic objectives such as rescuing downed Allied flyers, sabotage and intelligence gathering, not killing Germans, certainly NOT putting on German uniforms. Were you expecting a disclaimer at the end of each fictional show saying "don't do this at home"?
If you consider Allied agents and Resistance fighters to be "war criminals" who exactly would charge and try them given that you said Germany losing the war was inevitable? Have you walked the beaches and cemeteries at Normandy? Imagine being on those beaches...you are not thinking this is a cakewalk. Intelligence reports, blown bridges, downed communication lines, all helped. Normandy might have been a disaster if Hitler hadn't ordered no one was to wake him up!
Captured officers do have the right and duty to try to escape.
Captured officers do have the right and duty to try to escape.Initially, didn't you claim the Geneva Conventions gave captured officers the right and duty to escape? Each paragraph in the GC is numbered. I asked you to cite the paragraph number. You haven't done so. I will interpret this as a tacit admission on your part that you realize your claim was unsupportable.
France was defeated and occupied. It was hardly a "peace" agreement between Germany and France, but a surrender.Peace agreement? Surrender? Wars that are stand-offs aren't that common. Maybe the War of 1812 was an example. I read a book on the Royal Navy's destruction of the French Navy's capital ships, which were moored in French North African ports. That book said that France could have continued to fight, after the capture of Paris. It had a substantial fleet, fresh troops in the colonies, unconquered provinces in the south of France. The choice between continued fighting using the remaining resources, and an agreement with Germany was a political choice. I don't care if you call it a surrender agreement, or a peace agreement, or an armistice, the legitimate French government had a choice.
You neglected to mention that Petain would be tried and convicted and sentenced to death (commuted to life in prison)for TREASON.I didn't know that. I see that as an instance of victor's justice. Bear in mind that he was ancient, and seemed to be suffering from senile dementia.
Almost all the Resistance activity (and that of the Allied agents) involved strategic objectives such as rescuing downed Allied flyers, sabotage and intelligence gathering, not killing Germans, certainly NOT putting on German uniforms. Were you expecting a disclaimer at the end of each fictional show saying "don't do this at home"?I think it is highly morally questionable to show heroes committing war crimes.
If you consider Allied agents and Resistance fighters to be "war criminals" who exactly would charge and try them given that you said Germany losing the war was inevitable?The Geneva Conventions require victors to charge, try and sentence captured enemy war criminals in essentially the same courts, using the same rules of evidence, as they use when trying war criminals from within the ranks of their own armed forces.
Intelligence reports, blown bridges, downed communication lines, all helped. Normandy might have been a disaster if Hitler hadn't ordered no one was to wake him up!Helped? Originally you said it was essential.
So far in two episodes the agents have gone out of their way to avoid/prevent any civilian deaths.I haven't watched episode two yet, it is on my PVR. In episode one, weren't the SS planning to kill civilians in retaliaiton for the hostile acts of the SOE and the Resistance? Yes, retaliating against civilians is also a war crime. But should the SOE and resisance, knowing how ruthless the SS could be, have avoided triggering a brutal act of retaliation?
You do know you are not being paid by the word! Please show me where I said anything about the Geneva Convention giving officers the right and duty to try and escape. Never said that. Why put words in my mouth when it is easy to check? International law did give officers the right to try to escape. I never used the word "essential" in reference to the Resistance and agents at Normandy. I said vital. "Wasn't the USSR completely rolling up the Germans on the Eastern Front?" What history books have you been reading? Ever heard of Stalingrad? The Soviets backed up so far and lost so many million soldiers. Like Napoleon the Germans pushed too far into Soviet territory. By the way, the show takes place in 1942, not 1944 or 1945.
When the Germans occupied the capital of France I would not call that a "choice" Petain was a quasi-Fascist and convicted as a traitor. Anyone struggling to free France from Nazi tyranny was a freedom fighter. It was Petain who was a traitor.
Hitler and the SS often ignored the Geneva Convention, especially with the Soviets. You really like that word "war crimes". What "war crimes" have they shown the Allied agents committing besides putting on German uniforms which is the stuff of fiction anyway, dramatic license. Whether or not von Braun was a war criminal, that has nothing to do with this show.
You initially wrote:
...Killing soldiers in uniform (not prisoners or civilians) in a war is not a war crime and they were indeed heroes fighting against Nazi oppression (and genocidal murderers of millions of innocent civilians).Here is the comment http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4338336/board/nest/240572394?d=240750963#2 40750963
Terrorists murdering civilians is completely different. The Germans did execute Resistance fighters and Allied agents. A soldier wearing the enemy's uniform would expect to be executed by either side. The POWs who tried to escape in the Great Escape wore their own uniforms made to look like civilian clothes. Hitler ordered 50 executed. Those who carried out these orders were later found to be war criminals for executing POWs who had the legitimate right to try to escape.
...
What history books have you been reading? Ever heard of Stalingrad?Yes, and Kursk and Leningrad.
When the Germans occupied the capital of France I would not call that a "choice" Petain was a quasi-Fascist and convicted as a traitor. Anyone struggling to free France from Nazi tyranny was a freedom fighter. It was Petain who was a traitor.Whether Petain was a "quasi-fascist" isn't relevant to whether he came to be France's President legally, and had the legal authority to negotiate a diplomatic agreement with Germany that ended hostilities. If he had the legal authority to conclude a negotiation that ended hostilities then no French citizen could claim they were attacking German soldiers because they were lawful combatants of a state at war -- something you claimed above.
Hitler and the SS often ignored the Geneva Convention, especially with the Soviets.Germany did not accord captured Soviets the protections of POW status. Japan also did not honour the Geneva Convention.
What "war crimes" have they shown the Allied agents committing besides putting on German uniforms...For starters:
Simply answer the question: Did the SS have the right to execute the captured 50 Great Escapers, yes or no? The SS who murdered the recaptured and unarmed POW officers (who had never attacked anyone in their escape)were tried, convicted and executed as war Criminals. Yes or no? Are you saying POWs did not have the right or duty to try and escape. Cite that law!!
You are a citizen in a country occupied by violent force by an invading Nazi army of mass murderers. A traitor has sold out your country. At what point do you stop spreading your legs to the Nazis and fight back? When your neighbours are sent to slave labour camps? When Jewish women and children are put in "transit camps"? When your friends are executed for having a short-wave radio?
Pacifism is a wonderful thing. I'll be the first to sign up when everyone is a pacifist. You are worried that the Allied agents and the Resistance aren't playing nice, but I'll play. 1) Wearing German uniforms is a fictional movie cliché for dramatic purposes 2)Aurora didn't use the grenade. The Frenchwoman did in defense of her village. That was the far-fetched storyline. 3) The adman agent did not kill anyone. 4) The Germans wouldn't hesitate to kill them so self defense could be argued. The bottom line is the Nazis were responsible for tens of millions of deaths of innocent people, men, women and children. They were not going to leave quietly.
"First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew...Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak for me." This refers to Germans who allowed the Nazis to rise to power. They were elected, does that give them legitimacy? Does that make a civilian fighting back against their brutal authority a war criminal? Please stop spouting semantics and get real!
There is no doubt that the Allies committed ethically and morally questionable acts during the war. All sides did. All sides still do, even in undeclared wars. Putin arming terrorists in eastern Ukraine. Obama drone-bombing terrorists in places like Yemen and blindly taking out civilians in the process (we won't even go into the whole Bush/Iraq thing).
War is not a sanitary process and I fear for the time that it may become such, as that will mark the time when making war becomes the first option rather than the last.
Simply answer the question: Did the SS have the right to execute the captured 50 Great Escapers, yes or no?Your emotions are so engaged that you are ignoring that I went on record 4 days ago that the Germans weren't authorized to summarily execute the captured men. In this message I wrote http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4338336/board/nest/240572394?d=240785466#2 40785466:
WRT the fifty escaped POWs let's agree the Germans didn't have the authority to summarily execute them.
Are you saying POWs did not have the right or duty to try and escape.Yes. I am.
You are a citizen in a country occupied by violent force by an invading Nazi army of mass murderers. A traitor has sold out your country. At what point do you stop spreading your legs to the Nazis and fight back?The trouble with this is that if you or I were living under the thumb of a brutal dictatorship, and we knew that "fighting back" would trigger an overwhelming and disproportionate retaliation against the innocent civilians who were our neighbours, with no immediate advance towards overthrowing the oppressor's yoke, should be still fight back?
You are worried that the Allied agents and the Resistance aren't playing nice, but I'll play. 1) Wearing German uniforms is a fictional movie cliché for dramatic purposes 2)Aurora didn't use the grenade. The Frenchwoman did in defense of her village. That was the far-fetched storyline. 3) The adman agent did not kill anyone. 4) The Germans wouldn't hesitate to kill them so self defense could be argued.
The bottom line is the Nazis were responsible for tens of millions of deaths of innocent people, men, women and children. They were not going to leave quietly.What do you know of the bombing campaigns of World War 2: of the Luftwaffe's bombing of the UK, and the RAF and USAAF's bombing of Germany?
This refers to Germans who allowed the Nazis to rise to power. They were elected, does that give them legitimacy?Being elected is the text book definition of political legitimacy.
"The Nazis also violated the Geneva Convention when, in early 1944, Hitler issued the Bullet Decree (Kugel Erlass). According to Robert E. Conot, the author of the book "Justice at Nuremberg," the Bullet Decree stipulated that any officer or non-commissioned officer - except British or American - who escaped from a POW camp was to be shipped to Mauthausen concentration camp with the designation "Stufe III" (Third Degree). There they were either to be shot, or speedily starved and worked to death. To questions by the Red Cross or neutral powers, the Wehrmacht was directed to reply that the prisoners had "escaped and not been recaptured."
The Bullet Decree was soon amended to include British soldiers after the "Great Escape" on March 25, 1944 by 80 British, French, Greek, Norwegian, Polish, Belgian, (Canadian) and Czech officers of the British Royal Air Force from a POW camp at Sagan in Silesia. It was not against international law for prisoners to escape from a POW camp, and in fact, it was the duty of a POW to try to escape. This was the first successful escape from the Sagan POW camp, although there had been as many as 100 escape tunnels dug in this camp by the prisoners." (from a blog)
You are saying the POWs did not have the right to try to escape. This is pure semantics. If they did not injure anyone (and the 50 DID NOT injure anyone), the only punishment allowed would be discipline such as solitary confinement. The officer's "duty" to escape came from their own armed forces regulations.
Interesting that you blame "ruthless" Churchill for fighting back. Yes, the Allies should have been nicer and played fair. After all winning the war was "inevitable"!!! Show me one reputable historian who would use that term in 1940 or 1941 or even Dec. 7, 1941. Thank you for the good laugh comparing Paris under Nazi occupation with Ottawa under the Conservatives. Now that is quite a stretch. Thanks for the arguments, it has been interesting, but you are not going to change anyone's minds to thinking the Resistance and Allied agents were "war criminals" by any stretch of the imagination.
You keep suggesting it was wrong to fight back against evil because there may be retribution of more evil against innocent people (e.g. the village in France) as if the evil itself is not to blame. As if evil is going to stop if we roll over and say please be gentle. This reminds me of the convicted rapist/murderer in India who claims it was the woman's fault for fighting back against being raped and therefore getting her and her friend killed. Hitler was the practitioner of surrender or we will destroy you. Saying that "Churchill started it" is such utter nonsense as if Guernica, Spain (1937) never happened or Poland in 1939 or Holland in 1940. The trouble with your argument is that it is removed from the context that it was the Germans who not only started a war of aggression but also invented terror bombing. How about Coventry, Rotterdam, Warsaw?
You neglected to mention that Germany bombed London (24th August, 1940)and killed over 100 civilians in Portsmouth before Churchill retaliated by sending a raid on Berlin. How exactly were the British supposed to fight back in 1940 with the Continent occupied? Just wait for Germany planes to attack? One British military leader thought Britain was about three weeks from defeat. Churchill did what he had to do and you should be glad he did. It was not a game of cricket.
vicious occupying army of Germans who had invaded their country without any provocation whatsoever.
A little history lesson: Germany was the aggressor. Germany had already invaded the Czech lands. Britain appeased Germany at Munich. Britain and France signed a mutual aid treaty with Poland. Hitler knew full well that invading Poland would likely mean war. The Germans invaded Poland. Britain gave them 48 hours to withdraw. The Germans did not. Britain and France declared war on Germany. France did not invade Germany. Germany invaded Norway and France in 1940. I would give an analogy. Someone is trying to rape your friend, you tell them to stop, they refuse. You fight. Who is the aggressor?
sharemaybe they aren't selling the programme to france, don't know...but hey I have enough time keeping up with the german text...lol..I don't want to have to read French as well in the end....
susan
What you said makes sense, but its still quite disturbing, and it happens a lot on Canadian television, French is but a problem.
Your explanation of the "
but the cops even though they seem to be speaking English -- aren't...they're actually speaking French, you just hear it in English.reminds me of the Star Trek series, with the universal translators, which makes it easier to accept.
In the English language adaptation of 19deux, the Quebec policier show that is 19two in the English version, they pull a similar narrative trick. If you notice all the documents and newspapers are in French, but the cops even though they seem to be speaking English -- aren't...they're actually speaking French, you just hear it in English.
I never thought about that...
but you do have a point.....
I love that show....well the English version, not sure if the French version is shown here in Ontario at all...
I have never seen it, when say I'm flipping the tv guide channel on the French stations...so, I don't think that they picked up the French version at all....
and because the English is on ctv (bravo) I dont' think that they can, either,.......so
susan
It's quite strange. When my grandfathers threw handgrenades on germans or collaborators, he didn't check his geneva conventions.
This being the IMDB, sometimes key informations might be missing. One of such is filming locations. Though Canadian produced, it was done with heavy involvement of local actors from Hungary, where it was shot. A bit of a trivia, a character from the pilot, who played the Elderly Man (almost ran over, claiming not speaking German) has played a private detective 30 years ago, who during the same war resisted German occupation, and a bit unusual for socialist times (when it was shot) was not a Communist sympathizer.
I've mentioned the location, as the producers opted for doing it there, with local actors. The latter has importance, as many actors after the Cold War have learned two world language at most, with French not being one of them (it's English and to a lesser extent, German). When I got my niveau moyenne 8 years ago, I was one of 6 thousand people in a country of 10 million, and I'm not even an actor. In other words, it's next to impossible to find enough local actors to play a French village especially with a believable accent. As for why Québecois don't speak French (which, by the way, metropolitan French deem to be "pig French") is beyond me.
To be fair the German characters are portrayed by German actors they have the luxury of that.
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