France 2 is launching “L’Absente” this evening, its new event series with Clotilde Courau, Thibault de Montalembert, and Marie Denarnaud. A thriller whose plot, imagined by Delinda Jacobs, was partly inspired by the Natascha Kampusch affair.
While TF1 is broadcasting the first two episodes of Une Affaire française this evening, its event series adapted from the affair of little Grégory with Guillaume de Tonquédec, Blandine Bellavoir, and Guillaume Gouix in the main roles, France 2 draws opposite L ‘ Absent, a new mini-series also inspired by an infamous news item. At least in part.
Worn by Thibault de Montalembert (Ten percent), Clotilde Courau, Marie Denarnaud (HPI), Salomé Dewaels (Lost Illusions), or Olivier Rabourdin (Guyana), L’Absente transports us to the surroundings of Dunkirk, where a young woman found amnesiac resembles little Marina, disappeared nine years earlier. Is this really Marina Masson? And, if so, what happened to him during all these years?
Ultra effective, the pitch of this thriller tinged with family and intimate drama is obviously reminiscent of the Natascha Kampusch affair, which hit the headlines in Austria. And this is no coincidence because the producer of L’Absente, Sophie Révil (The Little Murders of Agatha Christie, They were 10), explains in a press release that it is indeed this case that has, initially, inspired the screenwriter Delinda Jacobs, to whom we already owe La Forêt.
“When Delinda Jacobs came to offer me this story, I did not hesitate for a moment. Like me, she had been marked by the story of Natascha Kampusch, this little Austrian girl of 10 years kidnapped on the way to school in Vienna in March 1998. She reappeared eight years later, a few streets away from her parents, having managed to escape the surveillance of her captor, a deranged man named Wolfgang Priklopil, who had held her in a cellar for all these years”.
Sarah ALCALAY – ESCAZAL FILMS
But the true story of Natascha Kampusch was only a source of inspiration, a starting point, for the creator of L’Absente, Delinda Jacobs, who then took her plot elsewhere. Because the mini-series of France 2 is primarily interested in the consequences of Marina’s disappearance on her family and her parents, who ended up tearing each other apart.
“From surprises to twists and turns, Delinda Jacobs takes us into a powerful and brilliant thriller. But what interests her most is elsewhere”, continues Sophie Révil. “What she wants to probe is the heart of her characters and the intimacy of a family that has been torn apart since the disappearance of little Marina”.
“The characters in this singular story have an extraordinary density and depth. Broken by the drama of the disappearance of a little girl, each of them has locked untold secrets in their hearts. They have so much to themselves. reproach. And they are all inhabited by a ghost, that of Marina, the absent one. Each is in search of redemption and deeply upsets us. The Absentee is first and foremost a story of love and reconstruction “.
A story which, lasting eight episodes, should easily hold in suspense the viewers of France 2. As well as the subscribers of the Salto streaming platform which has already been offering the entirety of L’Absente for several days.
