If you were a TV show, nothing would attract my attention more than a French-language series made in French about Zorro, the masked vigilante swordsman of old Los Angeles. Sword fighting plus cape plus Francophilia plus local pride equals yes, please.
Introduced in Johnston McCulley's 1919 serialized novel “The Curse of Capistrano” (with some 60 stories to follow), a son of Robin Hood of Californio and the Scarlet Pimpernel, the character quickly jumped onto the screen in 1920's “The Mark of Zorro,” with Douglas Fairbanks demonstrating his remarkable ability for parkour before anyone thought to call him that.
It was remade in 1940 with Tyrone Power; comic book canon later made it the movie the family left the night Bruce Wayne's family was killed; In any case, there is a lot of Zorro in Batman). Antonio Banderas played the character twice, in “The Mask of Zorro” (1998) and “The Legend of Zorro” (2005).
Most significantly, in the late 1950s it became the basis of a television series produced by Disney, starring Guy Williams, who is Zorro, I imagine, to most people, here and abroad. It has had a long international afterlife; You can watch it now on Disney+. (France has a local history with the character, as Alain Delon played him in 1975's “Zorro.”) It may not have been the most exploited intellectual property over the last century, but who doesn't know Zorro? Hands? Just as I thought.
The new “Zorro,” arriving here Tuesday on MHz Choice, some two years after its European debut, is a completely original and wonderful take on the material; It's one of my favorite new shows this year, possibly the one that made me happiest. Starring Jean Dujardin, whom American audiences will know as the star of the 2011 silent film “The Artist,” which won him an Oscar for lead actor, it's completely a comedy without being a parody: It's no “Zorro, the Gay Blade.” (Although, to be fair, most of the Zorro movies since Fairbanks have had comedy.)
It is 1821 in Alta California, at the twilight of Spanish rule. Don Diego de la Vega (Dujardin), known as Zorro only to his trusted mute servant, Bernardo (Salvatore Ficarra), a servant only in the sense that Batman's Alfred is a butler, has been out of the hero game for 20 years. It's not exactly clear why he took off his mask and put down his rapier, but he's taking a more reasonable approach to conflict resolution that, as an early scene demonstrates, works less than it could.
He married Gabriella (Audrey Dana) and has been working for his flamboyant father, Don Alejandro (André Dussollier), who is retiring as mayor of El Pueblo de la Reina de Los Angeles (as we learned to say in grade school) after 48 years, that is, before the city, founded in 1781, existed. (The show is a fantasy.) In the middle of handing over the job to his son, while Diego is giving a speech about the water supply, hygiene and education, Don Alejandro snatches it away amidst cheers, clutches his heart and dies. But he will return, like a ghost, to criticize his son, who, no doubt, has become bored and stagnant in his life, his marriage, and his job, whatever it may be.
In fact, she seems to know little about how the town actually works, and is especially surprised to learn that, due to her father's profligacy, she is deeply indebted to Don Emmanuel (Éric Elmosnino), a local businessman who has more than a finger in every pie: he also owns all the pie plates. Now he's about to build a casino, destroying a neighborhood and paying the workers with alcohol, prompting Diego to once again disguise himself and ride the son of his old, trusty steed, Tornado, also named Tornado.
His other antagonist is the portly and comical sergeant (Grégory Gadebois) who, upon Zorro's return, reads a letter he has saved for the occasion (“I want you to know that the way you made fun of me on numerous occasions 20 years ago had serious consequences for my self-esteem”). Now he is determined to unmask the caped crusader.
It is a romance, a swashbuckler, a melodrama, a relatively light critique of capitalism, demagogy and the malleability of the multitude. It is a farce, a French farce, literally and stylistically, a la Feydeau, with characters that appear and disappear, changing costumes and identity. Occasionally it's a sexual farce. The dialogue (subtitled) is witty. The action, which is neither bloody nor deadly, has the effervescent charm and slapstick charge of the excellent Jackie Chan. At the heart of the series is an unprecedented love triangle between Gabriella and Diego, as himself and Zorro, though it's unusually well-developed and somewhat… deep. The emotional stakes, which also involve a thieving street urchin (Baltasar Espinach) that De la Vegas adopts, are real.
The entire cast is top notch. Ficarra is a brilliant clown (his role is all mime) and also the most sensible of these characters. Dana falling in love with Zorro and falling out of love with Diego, and being deceived by both, is sublimely moving. Elmosnino is a fun villain, making his more selfish machinations seem reasonable. Dujardin, who had spoken of his desire to play Zorro as early as 2010 (“He wears all black, he has a mask and I could fence and ride a horse; I think it's my last childhood wish”), makes the strongest impression in the most complicated role. Somehow it makes Diego and Zorro psychologically distinct and convincingly complete, even when their identities, namely his own, become murky.
MHz Choice, which imports series from around the world, may not be high on your list of must-have streamers; it probably isn't. But how else are you going to see this good?
