Detective Zen

We've been watching a three-part series called Zen, about an Italian detective working in Rome. There were going to be more in the series, but it was cancelled...ratings weren't good enough, of course.

The series is based on three books by English writer Michael Dibdin, and strangely enough, the first of the books is actually the third in the series; so plainly there's been some mucking about with the original stories.

The most curious thing about the series, it seemed to me, is that it's filmed in Rome almost entirely with British actors. There's no attempt by these actors to speak in anything but their ordinary accents, including a Northern one and an Irish one. But the main female character in the story is played by an Italian, and the actress, Caterina Murino, has a distinct Italian accent. Which makes you wonder why everyone else doesn't have an Italian accent too. Rather odd.

Rufus Sewell plays Zen, a policeman with integrity - presumably since it's mentioned so often this is something of an anomaly - and he does the role well. But the plots, at least in the TV versions, are pretty muddled, and there are regular characters who come and go without any introduction. They seem to turn up as needed and then are forgotten again.

There's a slight underpacing about the series; it's not that it needs to be all action, but somehow there's a feeling that it could all go just a bit faster and wouldn't lose anything by it. And there's an underlying sleaziness in regard to Murino's character: the policemen in the department have laid bets on who will sleep with her first. This distasteful process continues right through the three episodes, and reduces the impact of some of the characters. Perhaps it's a common thing in Rome. As is police corruption, apparently.

Radio Interviews

I'm now back at home after doing my second radio interview about Grimhilda! in a week.  The first was with Owen Rooney last Thursday morning - the day before Grimhilda! opened.   The second was earlier tonight, with Donald Saville-Cook.  It took place in exactly the same studio, at Radio Dunedin.  I've learned a bit about Radio Dunedin over the last week or so; it's always good to know more about your local community.

To my surprise, I've found both the interviews quite enjoyable, and I was a lot more relaxed than I thought I'd be.  It helped that I was talking about something which I'm thoroughly familiar with.  If I'd been working on a subject about which I knew a great deal less, things might have been different...

On a totally different tack, I've been looking on my computer for something relating to a motorcycle helmet.  Surprisingly there's very little there.  A comment about purchasing Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance while we were in England in 2007 - I never actually read more than a few chapters before I gave it up as taking itself too seriously for its own good, and sold it on Trade Me.  It's a very popular book, but I wonder how many people actually get all the way through it - a bit like War and Peace in that sense!

One other reference was to an incident in Barcelona - this was in the same year, 2007.  I was wandering back to the place we were staying in when I sort of got caught up in a piece of moviemaking.  The film crew were filming a supposed robbery in which the robbers got away on a motorcycle.  The driver of the motorcycle had a helmet with horns on it for some reason.  Every time they filmed the robber running out of the building with the loot and getting away on the bike, the two of them had to go right round the block to get back again, because they were being filmed in a one-way street.  Not only that there was a cameraman on the back of a second bike, and of course they had to go round the block as well.  Such are the joys of moviemaking.