[TV Review] Marianne (2019)

“Marianne, born on Tuesday, she was happy on Wednesday, got married on a Thursday, became a witch on a Friday, captured on a Saturday, judged on a Sunday, executed on Monday, buried on a Tuesday.”

Marianne (2019) is a French horror miniseries on Netflix. It follows the story of Emma Larsimon (Victoire Du Bois), a successful novelist in her 20s. She rose to fame with her Lizzie Larck books, a young adult series named after the main character, who fights off a witch called Marianne. Emma started writing the books as a teenager, when she was having nightmares about Marianne. When Emma was writing the Lizzie Larck series, her nightmares stopped. The show picks up when she finishes the series, ready to move on and write something else, but immediately the nightmares return worse than ever before. Emma must revisit her small seaside hometown and confront the demons of her past - literally and figuratively.

Emma’s history is central to the mystery of the show. The story is framed with flashbacks to her childhood, and we see the traumas she faced as a young adult, including why everyone in her town seems to hate her now. Adult-Emma relies on alcohol to get through each day, and has strained relationships with her parents and old friends. Emma is both a sympathetic character and hard to watch. She has the maturity of a teenager, selfish and impulsive, because she became rich and started her career before she had to grow up.  She knows how influential she is, which she uses to manipulate others. She treats her friends poorly and herself even worse. It’s clear she is trying to avoid her own thoughts at all costs, and distract herself with partying and drinking. 

Right away, Marianne is clear about what kind of show it will be. The horror starts immediately with an old woman in an unkempt house, pulling out her teeth at the sink. The rest of the first episode is relentless, wasting no time. The witch Marianne can possess people, and she reveals herself with slow, creepy smiles that are just a little too big. There are quick flashes of her true face throughout the show, much like Pazuzu in The Exorcist (1973). Marianne herself is a mystery, and Emma must discover the witch’s past to learn her weakness. Marianne’s calling cards are little sacks made of skin, containing hair, fingernails, and teeth. The show does not shy away from the repulsiveness of this, and it’s even worse when we eventually see Marianne making sacks.

Marianne makes use of empty spaces in the cinematography, in a way that makes seemingly normal places feel threatening. The camera will follow a character’s gaze into a corner, and the audience is squinting and asking, along with the character, “Is someone standing there?” The pacing is perfect to reveal enough detail each episode to hold the audience’s attention, but to have enough to reveal in the satisfying ending. I would recommend Marianne particularly to fans of Mike Flanagan’s The Haunting of Hill House (2018), as it’s a scary supernatural story built on top of a sorrowful character drama. It’s also fitting for fans of Stephen King, as his readers will be familiar with stories set in small, foreboding towns and focused on the troubles of a writer who drinks too much. I will be on the lookout for more from Marianne’s creator, Samuel Bodin.

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