With Pierre Niney, François Civil and Géraldine Nakache, Fiasco is a hit, but does not necessarily make everyone agree. The Netflix series adopts a very specific format and humor: that of mockumentary.
A new French series has been a hit on Netflix since April 30: Fiasco, or the story of a shoot that doesn't go at all as planned. The comedy is carried by Pierre Niney, co-creator of the series with Igor Gotesman. The cast includes renowned names like François Civil, Géraldine Nakache, Pascal Demolon, Leslie Medina. Fiasco is perfectly embarrassing, which is exactly the aim: it is a mockumentary.
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The Office, Cunk on Earth…what is a mockumentary series?
If Fiasco is described as a “ The Office à la française”, it is mainly because of this genre to which they both belong. This British series, created by Ricky Gervais, is the one that preceded the famous The Office US very popular around the world, with Steve Carrell. The particularity: everything is done to make us extremely uncomfortable.
This type is the mockumentary, or mockumentary, contraction of mock (parody) and documentary. These works are shot with a hand-held camera and use all the codes of documentaries and usual reports. They pretend to report real facts, when everything is fictional. This is what allows, for example, to break the fourth wall with the camera gaze. The parody is often pushed to the point of finding false interviews.
At the recent pinnacle of the genre, we find Cunk on Earth (Planet Cunk) on Netflix. Diane Morgan plays Philomena Cunk, a journalist, and she parodies historical and scientific documentaries. She talks with real researchers, but asks absurd or deliberately conspiratorial questions. This gives rise to cult sequencesboth embarrassing and hilarious.
Fiasco is a mockumentary
Fiasco fully embraces the mockumentary. Everything is shot with a handheld camera, with interviews with the characters, under the pretext of the existence of a behind-the-scenes documentary on this chaotic shoot. The humor is therefore just as typical of the genre, capable of making one cringe both in its situations and its dialogues (and it must be said that Fiasco pushes the envelope, also surfing on black humor). We should therefore not be surprised by this very particular format that this new French series takes.
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If you know and liked one of the previously mentioned series, it is almost certain that you will enjoy Fiasco ; very well calibrated in its category to laugh while feeling uncomfortable for the protagonists. If this type of humor puts you in a pure state of embarrassment, it will be quite normal not to get too attached to this French series, which does not deserve it all.
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