I just watched LUPIN's second season and enjoyed it a lot. My relationship with the character is old and very affectionate. I read the entire collection and always expected a suitable adaptation in the movies or on TV. The ones I've watched until today, I didn't like. None of them managed to capture the lightness, modernity, and charm of Maurice Leblanc's books.
Having emerged in the wake of the 20th century – in 1905,
in a series of short stories published by the magazine “Je Sais Tout”. Arsène
Lupine was born modern in its amoral mentality, in its surprising twists exactly
like today’s streaming series, and its main character's delicacy and
vulnerability.
My first contact with the gentleman thief was through my
neighbor Zeca. José Carlos de Almeida Oliveira was the son of a Portuguese
family that moved to Brazil in the 1950s and lived in an apartment above ours,
in Copacabana beach, Rio de Janeiro. A chic apartment building was built in
1930 when the neighborhood was still populated only by houses.
The Oliveira’s were the most aristocratic family in our
building. Family dinners took place over a beautiful setting in the dining
room, with silver cutlery, crystal goblets, and white linen napkins. Mr.
Oliveira was a serious and disciplinarian man, as a Prussian officer. Everyone
in the family had to be showered and dressed properly at the table, at 7
o'clock sharp.
Unlike most Portuguese jokes told among Brazilians in the 1950s,
Senhor Oliveira did not own a grocery store or a bakery. He had an advertising
agency, which advertised on the city's trams and buses. They had money both in
Brazil and in Portugal. Zeca and Mario, the couple's children, had a first-rate
education in the best private schools in Rio. They had the most expensive toys
and almost all were imported from the USA or Europe. It was while playing at
their house that I got to know the wonderful Leggo building blocks, back in the
1960s.
Zeca was the second person in my life to inspire my love
for books. The first was my father. The second, Zeca, was a voracious reader. From
comics to books, he devoured everything. He was the one who introduced me to Arsène
Lupin. Zeca had a real passion for his adventures. I believe that like the
character in the French TV series, he designed his life in the footsteps of the
charming literary anti-hero. Zeca knew everything about science, history,
martial arts, weapons, makeup, safes, and other ideal arts to become a true
“cambrioleur”...
When we were 14, 15 years old, one night, Zeca invited me
to participate in an “adventure” with him. We walked along with Rua Barata
Ribeiro, close to our building, and reaching the corner of Rua Constante Ramos,
he entered a residential building back door and signed me to follow him. We
took the service elevator and went up to the top floor. When he got there, he
opened a door and we found ourselves at the top of the building, next to the
water tank. There he opened his backpack and took out a pair of leather gloves,
which he put on. He also took out a rope, one of those used for climbing, and
tied it to a pipe on the roof, throwing the rest onto a balcony on the floor
below. The apartment seemed to be dark and Zeca started to climb down the rope
and invited me to follow him. Terrified at the prospect of falling, or being
arrested for breaking in, I thanked him for the offer and said I wouldn't, not
even for a million dollars. Zeca, obviously, was very frustrated, but he
understood my indisposition and we returned home, without getting into any
major debates on the subject. He never again invited me to these crazy “adventures”,
I don't even know if he single-handedly carried them out. But I never forgot.
Years later I found him in Portugal, living in a cellar in Cascais, studying archeology
in college, and working at night in the local morgue.
I tell this to show how much Leblanc's character affects
his readers and fans. Something that the new French series refers to very
intelligently. Hats off to George Kay, creator of LUPIN for the ingenious
adaptation of his NETFLIX series. Being faithful to Leblanc's literary spirit,
Kay knew how to breathe new life into the character. No one was better than
Omar Sy for the new millennium version of the gentle-man thief.
While the original Lupin faced the challenges of upward
social climbing as part of his persona. Ossane Diop faces the same challenges
in France today, with thousands of African immigrants seeking the same
insertion in their society.
The second season finalizes the plot started in the first,
leaving us happy with the story's solution, but curious to know what will be
the next adventure of the charming thief in the third season. Making it clear,
at the end of the final episode, with the entire police force in France chasing
Assane through the streets of Paris that Arsene Lupine will still be here to
rob our hearts and minds...
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