by Benn Ray
I've been addicted to these TV shows. You know the ones. Chances are you've binged more than your share of them too.
The shows are typically set in a remote but scenic village that, while it has its own long, involved history with its characters, it generally does not have experience with brutal crime. Until it does.
And then we follow the frequently flawed detectives who are in slightly over their heads through this beautiful village (the towns themselves are often as much a character in the story as the people who populate them) as they navigate the intricate relationships of the townies who may or may not be conspirators or criminals.
Often times (but not always), an out-of-towner has to come in and help reveal the perpetrators and, in the process, they also reveal all the town's secrets lurking just below the surface.
These shows seem to have their roots in American television like the original Twin Peaks, Northern Exposure and films like Fargo and Being There. A point could be made that the film Hot Fuzz was an early parody of this genre. Even novels by authors like Tana French could be considered part of this genre.
The genre also has its roots in "Cozy Mysteries," but the nature of the crimes, vices and sins revealed are in direct contrast to the point of that genre.
And while there is usually a mystery, the shows can sometimes mix in other elements like horror, supernatural, conspiracy and/or contagion.
There are so many of these shows now, it really should be considered its own genre in order to make it easier to discuss them. And any good genre needs a name. So I've taken to calling these shows "Provincial Noir."
Provincial: of or concerning the regions outside the capital city of a country, especially when regarded as unsophisticated or narrow-minded.
Noir: a genre of crime film or fiction characterized by cynicism, fatalism, and moral ambiguity.
Provincial Noir - a type of tv show or film set in a scenic, old, remote village (or sometimes an old city generally not associated with brutal crime), often, but not exclusively, somewhere in Europe (North America and Australia also have their own entries into the genre) where a brutal crime (or series of crimes) for which the region is unaccustomed takes place. Those investigating the crimes are typically flawed, in-over-their-heads professional or amateur detectives (familial problems, promiscuity/adultery, addiction issues, etc.) and sometimes require an outsider to come in and help, and through the investigation of the crime, all sorts of secrets, living just beneath the veneer of the village, are brought to the surface.
The key defining elements to these sorts of shows are remote/old/scenic area where one does not typically expect to find the sorts of corruptions, crimes, perversions or vices as one typically encounters in urban environments, and, through the process of some kind of resolution, unexpected secrets are revealed.
Examples of Provincial Noir:
Bloodline
The Bridge
Broadchurch
Collateral
Dark
Doctor Foster
The Fall
Fallett (parody)
Fargo
Fortitude
Gracepoint (US version of Broadchurch)
Happy Valley
Hinterland
Hotel Beau Séjour
The Killing
Last Tango In Halifax
Marcella
Ozark
Paranoid
The Returned
River
Scott And Bailey
Sharp Objects
Shetland
Top Of The Lake
True Detective
Note: I started writing this post a year ago. I started thinking about this a year before that. I had fully expected some marketing person at Netflix or one of those clickbait websites to come up with some kind of names for these shows, and since they haven't, I'm posting this to propose we call them "Provincial Noir." I understand that the above definition is open for debate (and is a work in progress), and the list of shows above is far from complete.
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