Rivières pourpres

Questions (comprehension, culture, vocabulary)

1. In the first scene of this film, Inspector Niémans arrives in the town where a murder has been committed. The first conversation he has is with the local police captain. There are a few indications that Niémans is using everyday, conversational, informal French. Two such examples are the verb se taper and the noun borne(s). Find these words in a dictionary in order to see if these words also have "regular" meanings that are not familier. The word familier (or the abbreviation fam.) in a dictionary means that the word is part of what is called le langage familier, which means that it is not formal. In English, a good comparison might be the word car, which is somewhere between automobile (more formal/technical) and ride (less formal). Quite often the least formal term is the one that will change over time since most informal words are products of current social and linguistic trends. For example, the English word wheels used to be very popular as an informal way to refer to a car, but that was a generation or two ago.

2. There are many nouns with lots of synonyms in English and French (and other languages too, of course). However, sometimes the same word is adapted or modified to change the register or level of communication (formal or informal or somewhere in between). In French, a popular way of doing this is by keeping the first two syllables of a longer word and adding an 'o' to the end. This is the case word nouns such as dictionnaire, restaurant, microphone, micro-ondes, and many others. Dictionnaire becomes dico, and restaurant becomes resto or restau (both are pronounced the same way). Microphone becomes micro, and (un four à) micro-ondes becomes micro too. Listen throughout this film, and try to find any words like this that have been shortened (a process called truncation).

3. Another example of informal spoken discourse is the absence of ne in negative verb phrases. In the first scene of the film, does Inspector Niémans use ne along with the negative particles such as pas, rien, plus, etc.? What about his use of negation in the third transcribed scene (in the office of le recteur)? Who uses ne? What does this tell you about the level of formality or informality?

4. In the first scene, a few police-related terms are used by both Niémans and the local police captain. References to OPJ, la (Brigade) Criminelle, and parquet are used, in addition to other terms throughout the film, and although they can be more or less figured out from the context, it might be a good idea to get a better idea of the police/justice system in France. You can use any search engine to find such information, or you could start by looking for the official site of the French government or the government of Québec (if you want to compare some of the terminology, for example). The recruiting division of French national police even has a blog that you could also consult. http://www.blog-police-recrutement.com/ .

5. When the character played by Vincent Cassel visits the elementary school in Guernon, some comments are made about the new label for an inspector in France. He informs the teacher that a new title/rank exists. What is this new title?

6. In the second transcribed scene, the character played by Vincent Cassel goes to the highway maintenance garage, and he meets an employee who helps him find information. How do these two people address each other (tu or vous or a combination)? Explain anything that might seem unexpected.

7. In the same scene (the second transcribed scene), the character played by Vincent Cassel announces: « Je suis de la maison. » Why does he say this?

8. Find some examples of different structures for asking questions in different scenes, then try to formulate an idea or several ideas regarding when certain question structures are used, depending on the context. In general, do most people use inversion, est-ce que, or no change from a regular/declarative sentence?