Topic: What is the purpose of France?

[York]

No, I'm not asking what the purpose of the country is (obviously it's to make England look good, not that we need any help in that respect).

Rather, what is the purpose of Noir being set (at least in part) in France? It's something I've occasionally wondered about. I have looked through various threads here before but haven't found anything concrete regarding this particular question. Since I've not really been able to make heads or tails of it myself, I thought I'd make a thread since from what I can tell people here have thought about the series in general much more than I have. The question also raises some further questions in my mind and I'm interested to see what you make of them.

Why the use of 'Noir'? Is it to tie the series to the film noir genre, or does it have some other purpose? If it has some other purpose, what is it?

As a matter of pure curiousity, have any of you heard of the poem 'Mirèio/Mireille' by Frédéric Mistral? If you have, do you think it had any bearing on the series?

Speaking of the poem, why the use of the name 'Mireille' for one of the protagonists? Was it picked at random, because it sounded particularly French or was there some other purpose to it?

[AlexShadow]

These are great questions and there's probably people here who can better answer than I could but I'll take a stab at it.

IIRC, Noir was inspired by Leon the Professional, given that's a French film by a French filmmaker, I suppose they felt it was fitting to start the show off in France.   I mean Japan really loves Germany and German culture but I don't know if there was a Francophile phase around that time or not.  Could be author appeal, the writer Tsukimura and/or director Mashimo, or the producer , Kitayama, really like France and wanted to do a story set there.

Noir does mean black in French but I wouldn't be surprised if there's also a bit of an homage to film noir in general.  I'll admit, haven't seen a lot of old school noir films to really know how much it has in common with older works but it seems to fit the bill of neo-Noir works of the last two decades.

[FallenAngel]

As far as I know, no other European country has a unit comparable to the Foreigners Legion. So it was for the sake of "Season of Hell". 

Why not France? If I look for example at the history of the Templar knights, which is tied to the French history,  I can see some similarities to the Soldat. Being a military religious order, founded to protect the pilgrims, they gained power, followed their own goals, with violence if necessary. And some believe that they weren't destroyed but vanished into the underground and secretly influence the politics of several states.

Or maybe there is no specific reason behind it and they simply rolled the dice.

[York]

I think these are fair points. There's definitely things that could tie it to France either because the creators were particularly keen on it or there were certain historical analogues for them to use. That said I do also wonder if it's not just one those 'sometimes a cigar is just a cigar' moments and it was done almost on a whim.

[Magnus]

If I had to guess, I would say that the European setting and characters and globetrotting plot are there to make Noir seem exotic to a Japanese audience. That said, the production seems to have gone to some length to make Noir's France believable, with real Parisian landmarks and recognisable cityscapes - it's not impossible that location scouts went and photographed areas of metropolitan Paris for the art department. See these links:

http://www.beetrainfan.org/paris/Paris01.htm

http://www.beetrainfan.org/forum/index.php/topic,104.0.html

http://www.beetrainfan.org/forum/index.php/topic,1470.html

http://www.beetrainfan.org/forum/index.php/topic,1596.0.html

http://kiritannpo.cocolog-nifty.com/noir/2015/09/post-d46e.html

http://kiritannponabebenthos.blogspot.com/2016/07/noir.html

It should be noted that the Paris seen in Noir isn't totally authentic, as numerous landmarks and names don't match their real-life counterparts.

There was a deliberate stylistic homage to film noir - according to the translated production notes that came with the original ADV release of Noir, the production wanted to emulate it as a tool for drawing audiences into the world and characters of Noir. Film noir is also invoked in the Noir artbook, Les Deux Vierges, in a section that talks about stylistic and thematic influences on the show. Using the word noir for the show's title and for a concept in the show itself certainly helps to strengthen this link by invoking the idea of film noir.

[FallenAngel]

See these links:

http://www.beetrainfan.org/paris/Paris01.htm
...

This brings back memories...  and it reminds me that I didn't make it back to Paris until now. It makes me happy to see that someone still remembers it and that it is still some kind of reference.

[noirlax]

There's a lot of great points here, Templars, Film Noir, Leon, the exoticness of France.

I agree Film Noir is a good part of it. I opened my copy of Le Deux Vierges even though I can't read it. I'm pretty sure film noir is mentioned somewhere. They mention The Untouchables which is a Neo-Noir movie. Even without the art book, it's pretty clear Noir has homages to film noir in it's cinematography such as the stark lighting, flashbacks and camera angles.

Apart from the homage to film noir, I think the choice of France has to do with Japanese tastes or perhaps the creators. The Japanese suffer from Paris syndrome, so France must be held at the utmost aesthetic regard compared to other countries.