Season 4 of Dix Pour Cent has arrived
Two years ago, I ‘discovered’ Dix Pour Cent during a trip to Dubai. After dinners on a yacht or in the desert, I dove into my creaky fresh hotel bed with my laptop to devour about three episodes. The Paris, the characters, so entertaining and especially recognizable because after three and a half years at Marie Claire, I knew the archetypical Parisiennes like the back of my hand. The end of season three meant a raw goodbye to my new friends, but Netflix served us a fourth season right in the heart of the lockdown. Although just six measly episodes, it's something and it makes you happy.
1. A Paris without corona
Shaking hands, close together, crowded pubs, wild house parties with morning afters where you trip over bottles, that kind of thing. Wonderful, blissful, I want it and I find it terrible that there’s always a shock that goes through me when people kiss each other on the cheek and my inner Diederik Gommers says: don't do it, don't do it.
2. About Laure Calamy (a.k.a. Noémie)
The danger of caricatures looms large in this fourth season. Actors who are no longer seeing it, agents playing sly games, enemies digging the same pit for each other and then both falling into it, it's a bit flat here and clichéd there. But Noémie, Mathias's assistant who has clawed her way up to partner (both in bed and at work), is gold. When she takes off her dress along the Seine after the César awards because it doesn't fit well and she stands there completely naked next to the starched Mathias, or when her new colleague completely ignores her and she keeps shouting at volume 36 “Have a nice evening, HAVE A NICE EVENING” because that skinny bitch just won't say anything. And how amazing is she when she gives her opinion on a script during a dinner at home despite all of Mathias's attempts to silence ‘that little woman’ (he doesn't say it literally but you feel it in everything)? She goes wild, almost ascends, brings in a comparison with Brecht and wins. In everything. I find her delightful.
3. About the French
Where I still think I should say ‘Que dirais-tu de déjeuner avec moi?’ you can just replace that with: ‘On dej?’ Look, learned something again.
4. About the party of recognition
The terrace of Marly, the right bank along the Grand Palais, the street signs, the cobblestones, the language, the arguments, the temperament: you are just in the real, unpolished Paris.
5. About the ‘real’ actors
The gimmick of Dix Pour Cent is that a very famous actor or actress plays along in every episode. Earlier, there were Isabelle Adjani, Juliette Binoche, and Claude Lelouch. This season is a bit less a party of recognition for us, but still. Charlotte Gainsbourg, Sigourney Weaver, and Franck Dubosc.
So if you're done throwing snowballs this weekend: Paris is waiting for you.
