Distributor: Just Entertainment
Episodes: 6
Duration: 52 min (per episode)
Forgotten Girls (Les Oubliées) (DVD) – Movie Review
Forgotten Girls (or originally known as Les Oubliées) is a mini-series consisting of six episodes where an investigator does whatever he can to solve the mysteries of several disappearances. Although the series is quite short (hence the mini), it still offers a more old-school like vibe as the tempo is pretty slow and the amount of action not as high as you see in almost every popular series nowadays. Still, it’s not a series that’ll suit everyone’s taste so before spending about six hours of your life watching this, be sure to read the review below.
As already mentioned, in Forgotten Girls, we meet an investigator named Christian Janvier (Jacques Gamblin). Janvier has spend the last 15 years searching for answers concerning ‘The Forgotten Girls’, six girls aged 15, who’ve been abducted and assumedly murdered. What’s even weirder is that the culprit leaves behind the clothes of the girls all neatly folded and cleaned, accompanied by a little statue of the Virgin Mary. Janvier made the promise to do everything in his power to find the one responsible and so, the whole series is about Janvier chasing behind the twisted individual who’s behind all of this.
One day though, another girl goes missing and at first, it looks like the same culprit is at work which would mean another disappearance after 15 years of silence. This time around, the murderer leaves behind a track and Janvier is right on it. Soon enough, he finds a suspect who seems to fit the description of the wanted man but eventually, Janvier finds out that the guy is not the original killer from so long ago. And so the search continues.
As you might’ve noticed, the story is not particularly Oscar worthy but it’s still an enjoyable one to follow. While inspector Janvier is doing everything within his power to find the culprit, you just ‘need’ him to find the killer as seeing the main character suffer so much throughout his search is just dreadful to experience.
Now some words about the pacing. The series knows a rather slow build-up as in the first few episodes, you won’t experience a lot of action. In total, there’re only six episodes so that basically means that a rather large portion of the series is more aimed at dialogues and tranquil scenes than shootouts and other kinds of explosive behaviors. Later on though, the plot really starts to unfold and this causes Forgotten Girls to feel a lot more intense. Still, you’ll either like this method of pacing or you won’t. Fact is that not everyone will like it, which doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a bad way of making a series; it’s just different.
The camera work is another aspect you need to get used to. Often, the creators made use of a portable hand camera which makes the shots a lot shakier and dynamic. Close-ups too are pretty frequent and especially in a more action oriented scene, this might become a bit of an annoyance. It’s praiseworthy that the makers wanted to do the movie capturing on an alternative way but for the audience, it might prove hard to adjust.
The general acting is pretty decent in Forgotten Girls, especially if you look at the performance of main character Christian Janvier, played by Jacques Gamblin. He makes use of all kinds of techniques to make his character a very sincere and believable one. Body language, spoken text, eye contact,… it’s all synchronized and makes the character feel like one you could meet any day on the street. Other actors and actresses like Aïssa Bussetta who plays a colleague of Janvier and Morgane Cabot (Janvier’s daughter) are also good at what they do, although it’s harder to really evaluate their performances as they don’t get so much screen time as Gamblin. From what I’ve seen, they did an okay job without particularly standing out (not so much as Gamblin himself that is).
If you’re a fervent reader of our movie reviews, you’d know that we always say some words about the extras. Alas, the Forgotten Girls DVD box doesn’t come with any extras, not even some deleted scenes. Sorry folks!
Conclusion
Forgotten Girls won’t suit everyone’s taste as it uses a certain steady method in regard of pacing and relies heavily on the story behind all events rather than a lot of action scenes. The camera techniques used in the series might be another point of annoyance for some folks. Besides those remarks, Forgotten Girls offers a brilliant lead actor and an interesting storyline so if you don’t mind a somewhat different series, don’t be afraid to give this one a shot.
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