It’s early days, but it looks like we may have just found our most anticipated “TV show” of 2018. The best limited series of 2014 you didn’t see? Bruno Dumont’s hilarious, acidic and incredibly dark French police procedural and coming of age dramedy, “Lil’ Quinquin” (here’s our review from Cannes). To give you context of this strange little oddity coming from this filmmaker, The Guardian perfectly explained it all with this headline: “Why France’s God Of Grim Made A Knock Out Clouseu-Style Caper.” Indeed,“Lil Quinquin” was a game changer for Dumont, the provocative filmmaker behind some of the most disturbing and shocking films you may not have seen (Lars Von Trier, Michael Haneke and Gasper Noe tend to earn all the buzz, but Dumont can be twice as shocking). Featuring two bumbling Keystone-esque cops, “Lil Quinquin,” focused on a gruesome murder that takes places in an idyllic French coastal town while telling the parallel coming of age story of the titular rapscallion character. One could argue it was like a weird, European bizzaro-world version of “Twin Peaks.”
And now, according to ScreenDaily, a second season is on the way and this time it will feature supernatural and sci-fi elements, the qualities of which were hinted at in the end of season one. Titled “Coincoin And The Extra-humans,” the drama will revisit the life of the now-grown-up social misfit Quinquin who currently goes by the nickname of CoinCoin. According to ScreenDaily the character, “spends his time loafing about the area and attending meetings of the Nationalist Party with his friend Fatso. His childhood sweetheart Eve has now left him for a woman.” Here’s the synopsis:
READ MORE: Cannes Review: Bruno Dumont’s Absurd & Decadent ‘Slack Bay’ Starring Juliette Binoche
When a strange magma is found near CoinCoin’s home town, the inhabitants suddenly start to behave strangely. Goofy detective Captain Van Der Weyden and his loyal assistant Carpentier set about investigating these alien attacks, discovering that an extra-terrestrial invasion has begun.
And thank god, Van Der Weyden (the incompetent and twitchy Inspector Clouseau-like character and his partner Carpentier) are back. The trade says the show will touch on both migrant crisis and rise of populist politics, fitting considering immigration and intolerance were themes bubbling in the background of the debut season.
And you’ll notice film festivals are now catering to PeakTV and making room for as many celebrated shows as possible — The Toronto International Film Festival did the same last season by including the first episode of “Transparent.” But one film festival that hasn’t felt the need to budge at all is the Cannes Film Festival, they’ve turned up their nose, they love cinema and that’s all they need they’ve said in the past. But they actually made the exception in 2014 with Dumont’s show. While it was presented as four-hour movie, the show was conceived of as a series (and has been grossly underseen in North America).
Either way, not sure we can get enough of it. “Lil Quinquin” featured many non-actors in the original cast and most of them are expected to return. Dumont is planning to shoot the series/film this summer for a 2018 release. Get it into our eyeballs right now.
