Paris (AFP)
A group of Nazi hunters, led by Al Pacino, in a series full of references to comics and superheroes: "Hunters", a new production by Amazon Prime, shakes up representations of the Shoah at the risk of disturbing some .
After "Jojo Rabbit" by Taika Waititi, a comedy about just Oscar-winning Nazi Germany (best adapted script), "Hunters", broadcast from Friday, confirms the ambition of scriptwriters to try to speak differently about this terrible page in history.
The creator of the series, David Weil, says that he fed on the stories of his grandmother, a survivor of the concentration camps, and claims the mixture of genres.
"We were all curious to see how it would coexist," said actor Josh Radnor, one of the Nazi "hunters", during his visit to Paris. "We have always thought about the tone".
Contrary to historical mini-series like "Holocaust" (1978) with Meryl Streep or from the film "La vie est belle" (1998) by Roberto Benigni, fable awarded in Cannes then three times Oscar winner, "Hunters" draws its inspiration directly from the comics, the Marvel universe and that of DC Comics, and is eyeing Tarantino for "Inglourious Basterds" (2009).
The series is also produced by the new horror king, Jordan Peele, the director of "Get Out".
- Batman and X-Men -
In "Hunters", Al Pacino plays Meyer Offerman, a rich New Yorker, survivor of Auschwitz, at the head of the gang of hunters and who we compare successively to Bruce Wayne, alias Batman, or to "Professor X", the leader of the X-Men.
Around this Simon Wiesenthal in comics sauce, gravitate a nun, an elderly couple, a young black woman out of a film of "blaxploitation" (American films of the 70s valuing African-Americans), an Asian man and an actor in the closet.
"Each of these characters is part of a minority or of people who have no say in the matter. Each has personal reasons to participate in this hunt," points out Josh Radnor.
There is a young recruit there: Jonah (Logan Lerman, seen in "Percy Jackson"), whose grandmother, herself a survivor of the camps, has just been murdered at her home in New York.
This murder, in the middle of summer 1977, is the starting point of the series which highlights the presence of former Nazi leaders living under cover in the United States, and the emergence of a new generation preparing for the Fourth Reich.
Faced with the inaction of the authorities, this eclectic team decides to act in the shadows, via bloody accounts settlements or making heavy reference to Nazi methods (a former chemist is thus gassed, in the shower).
- Inspired by real facts -
The series "inspired by real events" also returns between past and present, with flashbacks in Auschwitz or in the Jewish ghetto, highlighting in broad strokes the Nazi barbarism and the heroism of the deportees. Hence a scene with Jewish musicians playing "Hava Naguila" at the entrance of the camp, whose 75 years of liberation have just been commemorated. Or a life-size chess scene with deportees acting as pawns.
"I did not do research on the Holocaust, it is a subject that I knew well, I rather wanted to blend in with the era (the 70s, note)," said Josh Radnor, -Even of Jewish origin and claiming the very dark humor of the series.
"Humor is what keeps us even in the most catastrophic situations," he said, wishing the ten-episode series be extended. And "this dark humor that talks about death is something I know well and in which the Jews are pretty good".
A mixture of genres that attracted Al Pacino, of which it is the first participation in the proper sense in a series (on an SVOD platform).
The actor of "Godfather" and more recently of "The Irishman" (on Netflix) was however already illustrated on television in "Angels in America" (2003), mini-series on the AIDS years adapted from the play of theater of the same name.
© 2020 AFP