'Piste Noire': Dark, twisted French crime drama set in blindingly beautiful alpine ski resort

Noire by name Noir by nature. A fan of Nordic Noir? Then you can't go past this icy and mysterious French crime drama.

A woman stands in a police station holding a mug

'Piste Noire'

Let me set the scene: a beautiful, remote and mountainous region where sunbeams force piercing light through sheaths of grey cloud; perfectly lean, athletic bodies in expensive ski suits whip down flawless mounds of snow.

So far, so ordinary. But if you add the mysterious, gruesome death of a foreign worker and the entrance of a moody, disillusioned, veteran partnered with a young, principled and perseverant policewoman, you’ve got a story.

It must be the latest Nordic noir drama, right?

'Piste Noire'

That's a fair assumption. In fact, this is the setting for new French crime drama "Piste Noire", set in Les Clairies, a pristine ski resort in the French Alps. The resort draws the affluent ski set, who relish the glorious wilderness and the grandiose hotels, dining, drinking and white powders of the non-snow variety. When local celebrity ski champion Boris Arnoux returns to Les Clairies after triumph at an international downhill ski race, his wife Charlotte and friends celebrate in their usual outré style. As the revelry takes place at a local hotel, a mysterious fire engulfs a caravan in the temporary camp below the resort where foreign workers take up residence during the peak ski season.

With only the charred remains of a body as physical evidence of the crime, young Lyon-based gendarme Émilie Karras (Constance Labbé) and grizzled local police officer Loïc Servoz (Thibault de Montalembert) have their work cut out for them in determining the chain of events leading to this death.

To further complicate their work, both have arrived at this case laden with personal baggage. Émilie is not enthused at returning to the region she was born and raised in, having left it behind 12 years earlier to establish her life and work in Lyon. Though she'd hoped to avoid any engagement with her estranged family while in Les Claires, it is unavoidable when clues lead her to suspect they may have an involvement in the case.

Policeman waits with a gun drawn outside a snowy cabin

'Piste Noire'

Her reluctant partner in crime solving, Loïc is distracted by the complexity and extent of drug dealing and criminal networks in his seemingly idyllic local region. A dead body, he opines, is merely more trouble on top of an epic mountain of existing chaos.

Reigning over this bedlam are the beautiful, rich, publicly lauded celebrity athletes and their privileged, pugnacious friends. With his crystal-cut cheekbones, sturdy jaw and perfectly tousled hair, Boris (Pierre-Yves Bon) is accustomed to getting his way and dodging scrutiny. He is entirely at home in front of a rabble of media and public admirers. Charlotte (Déborah Krey) is quicker to suspect that their marriage, their wealth and their partying habits will be exposed regardless of their fame and influence.

Ultimately, it is the dynamics in play between men and women, husbands and wives, rich and struggling, locals and outsiders, addicts and dealers, old and young, suspect and investigator that maintains the captivating cat-and-mouse appeal of Piste Noire.

Two police interrogate a man in a police station

"Piste Noire'

This is dark, dramatic storytelling rich with sex, drugs, sport and politics. Being French, it takes no shortcuts when it comes to filling the screen with glamour and elegance, equally applicable to the nouveau riche resort residents and the spectacular alpine views. The brutal contrast between blinding beauty and a devilishly bleak underside is nothing new to French crime drama, though.

Spiral

was a recent exemplar of how dark and twisted this genre can be. Like Nordic Noir, French crime dramas are very clever in their ability to craft intricately complex, relatable human characters who are often unwillingly drawn into crime or detective work and sometimes straddle both worlds imperfectly. The divided loyalties that are at the heart of great crime dramas are central to Emilie's story - there's no clear-cut right or wrong path she can take as both a police officer and a sister. Either way, one element of her identity is going to have to be sacrificed. There's also a timeless appeal to the gruff policeman teamed up with a (sometimes) younger, less jaded female partner in the spirit of

Syndrome E

The Tunnel

and

Spiral

Even if the magic phrase “New French Crime Drama” doesn’t tingle your bones, it’s nearly impossible to resist the landscape of Piste Noire and that alone should entice you to the first episode. The six-episode series was filmed over three months at the end of 2021 at the base of Mont Blanc in the Avoriaz ski resort within the village of Morzine in Haute-Savoie. According to interviews with the actors, the weather was occasionally so freezing during high altitude days on set that members of the crew were fainting.

That same dizzying frisson of risk and impending disaster infuses Piste Noire, a very classy “whodunnit” that may haunt you long after the last scene.

Piste Noire season 1 is now streaming at SBS On Demand.