The emphasis on uniforms and matériel not only recalls the Vienna of Robert Musil and Hofmannsthal's pal Count Harry Kessler — both aesthetes with military backgrounds — but that of contemporary America, in which gendarmes drag civilians off airplanes not to the tune of Viennese waltzes but to the siren song of Shareholder Value.
His most recent film, Hors la Loi (Outside the Law), shot after London River, is set in the aftermath of the 1945 Sétif massacre, in which French gendarmes killed anti-colonialist protesters in Algeria.
Victor, of course, was an onlooker at the mass suicide in the forest, which the gendarmes were close to foiling – they managed to get to the children of the circle (including Simon) before they were dosed with sleeping pills, but failed to stop the adults from killing themselves (Pierre excepted; more on that later).
There was also violence in the small town of Saint-Aignan, in the Loire Valley, after Roma attacked a police station following an incident in which a gendarme shot and killed a traveler who had driven through a checkpoint.
For example, several government gendarmes are stationed in Fampotakely, which is highly unusual for a remote village in Madagascar that is not a county seat.
A wild chase across country, starting from Orléans and ending in the railway station at Étampes, in which cycle-policemen, gendarmes, automobiles and soldiers belonging to the army balloon corps took part, ended yesterday [Jan.
It certainly looks like Claire got off lightly, judging by the episode's final shot, which showed the gendarmes from the face-off at the Helping Hand strapped to trees in the forest, unmistakably dead.
Wiggins said that the team's bus and truck had been searched by the French police, and that the riders had been made to sign forms which allowed the gendarmes to search their suitcases.
In one of the cities through which they passed, a gendarme asked the family who they were, upon which Dermide replied, "Messieurs, it is the son of General Leclerc traveling with his suite".
