Passionate, bloody and intense, the series “Black butterflies” has been broadcast since September 7 on Arte. Signed Olivier Abbou and Bruno Merle, it features Niels Arestrup, Nicolas Duvauchelle, Alice Belaïdi and Alizée Costes.
It all starts with a white beach. Adrien, a writer lacking in inspiration, is hired by a mysterious retiree to write his memoirs. The man, Albert, tells him regarding his past as a young solitary orphan. When he meets Solange, Boche’s daughter left to herself, the two children become inseparable. Their first crime is an accident. The second, a calculation. Killer summers follow each other without alike, to the melancholy rhythm of a disco song from the 1970s. But the wick is burning…
A relationship of fascination and rejection then develops between Adrien and the former serial killer. And as the old man recounts his past as a murderer, Adrien’s novel is written – dark, romantic and fascinating – and leads the writer to dive into his own gray areas.
Childhood wounds
The French actor Niels Arestrup, who plays Albert, returns for the RTS to the success of the series: “It’s a story that might only be done over time, because we had to see childhood. It We had to see those wounds of childhood. We had to be able to start telling the story of an encounter between two life-wounded people. Which, from the moment there are two of them, become a strength, and more only victims. And from the moment there are two of us, we can start sending things back”.
>> To see: the trailer for the series “Black butterflies”
“Whether you are 5, 25, 48 or 75, there is something that remains and which is called the wounds of life, continues Niels Arestrup. These wounds, the characters of ‘Black Butterflies’ have taken full the mouth when they were children: orphans, daughter of Boche, daughter of whore in Boches… they take it full the mouth for years “.
And the actor to add to conclude: “Today, it is not quite the same thing, but it can be people who come from elsewhere, and who take it in the face too. Even today, there are plenty of people who are injured, and who are nice to only be injured. One day, perhaps, they will return the blows, and that’s completely normal. It’s a little regarding what ‘The Black Butterflies’ tells”.
Interview by Yacine Nemra
Adaptation web: cf