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History Film / TheMarkOfTheAngelsMiserere

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* AdaptationDeviation: The novel's climax is [[spoiler:a shoot-out in the vicinity of the Colony (in central France) involving Kasdan and Volokine against the Colony's leaders.]] The film 's climax is [[spoiler:a race against time in the Strasbourg European Parliament to prevent Laura Bernheim (a character absent from the book) from being murdered by the Colony.]]



** In the novel, Volokine (the character who plays Salek's role) is amnesiac and regaining memories of [[spoiler:his childhood in the Colony]] plays a role in the plot. In the movie, he remembers all of this from the start.

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** In the novel, Volokine (the character who plays Salek's role) who's Salek is the movie's counterpart) is amnesiac and regaining memories of [[spoiler:his childhood in the Colony]] plays a role in the plot. In the movie, he remembers all of this from the start.
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The Interpol agent Frank Salek ([[Music/SupremeNTM JoeyStarr]]) is investigating on an international smuggling ring kidnapping children, while the retired French policeman Lionel Kasdan (Creator/GerardDepardieu) investigates the weird murder of Wilhelm Goetz, a choir master and Chilean refugee found dead in his church. Salek founds a clue involving Goetz and teams up with Kasdan...

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The Interpol agent Frank Salek ([[Music/SupremeNTM JoeyStarr]]) (Creator/JoeyStarr) is investigating on an international smuggling ring kidnapping children, while the retired French policeman Lionel Kasdan (Creator/GerardDepardieu) investigates the weird murder of Wilhelm Goetz, a choir master and Chilean refugee found dead in his church. Salek founds a clue involving Goetz and teams up with Kasdan...
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The Interpol agent Frank Salek ([=JoeyStarr=]) is investigating on an international smuggling ring kidnapping children, while the retired French policeman Lionel Kasdan (Creator/GerardDepardieu) investigates the weird murder of Wilhelm Goetz, a choir master and Chilean refugee found dead in his church. Salek founds a clue involving Goetz and teams up with Kasdan...

to:

The Interpol agent Frank Salek ([=JoeyStarr=]) ([[Music/SupremeNTM JoeyStarr]]) is investigating on an international smuggling ring kidnapping children, while the retired French policeman Lionel Kasdan (Creator/GerardDepardieu) investigates the weird murder of Wilhelm Goetz, a choir master and Chilean refugee found dead in his church. Salek founds a clue involving Goetz and teams up with Kasdan...

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* MakeMeWannaShout: [[spoiler:The murder weapon is the voice of a choirboy who suffered from a surgical operation of his throat to turn his voice into ranges allowing it to cause deafness or even death. It serves as torture[=/=]execution method used in black sites. The villain's plot in the movie consists in using it to murder Laura Bernheim.]]


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* SuperScream: [[spoiler:The murder weapon is the voice of a choirboy who suffered from a surgical operation of his throat to turn his voice into ranges allowing it to cause deafness or even death. It serves as torture[=/=]execution method used in black sites. The villain's plot in the movie consists in using it to murder Laura Bernheim.]]
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* SpiritualSuccessor: To ''Film/TheCrimsonRivers''. Both are about two investigators WorkingTheSameCase and eventually [[OldCopYoungCop teaming up]] to investigate a gruesome murder, then unravelling a creepy conspiracy involving Nazis. Coincidentally, both are adaptated from (unrelated) novels by the same writer.
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* CrusadingWidower: Downplayed with Kasdan: the death of his wife (in backstory) caused him to retire from police; he isn't pursuing his personal investigation it to avenge her death (she died of cancer), but merely because retiring just after her death made him feel like his career ended on a tragic failure. [[spoiler:In the end, he felt saving Laura Bernheim solved this issue.]]

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* CrusadingWidower: CrusadingWidow: Downplayed with Kasdan: the death of his wife (in backstory) caused him to retire from police; he isn't pursuing his personal investigation it to avenge her death (she died of cancer), but merely because retiring just after her death made him feel like his career ended on a tragic failure. [[spoiler:In the end, he felt saving Laura Bernheim solved this issue.]]
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* AdaptationTitleChange: The original novel is just titled ''Miserere''.

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* AdaptationTitleChange: The original novel is just was originally titled ''Miserere''.''Miserere'', though it has been republished under the adaptation's title at the time of the adaptation's release.

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* AgeLift:
** Salek seems to be in his forties, while Volokine is 30 in the book.
** Vernoux (the inspector responsible of the actual, offical, police investigation) is 35 in the book. His age isn't specified in the movie, but his actor Thierry Lhermitte was 61 at the time (4 years younger than Depardieu).



* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome: Since he's retired, Kasdan is ''not'' supposed to make his personal investigation on a murder and, after clashing several time with Vernoux (the inspector responsible of the actual, offical, police investigation), the latter threatens him to put him in custody if he keeps on with his personal crusade.

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* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome: Since he's retired, Kasdan is ''not'' supposed to make his personal investigation on a murder and, after clashing several time with Vernoux (the inspector responsible of the actual, offical, police investigation), Vernoux, the latter threatens him to put him in custody if he keeps on with his personal crusade.

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* RealityEnsues: Since he's retired, Kasdan is ''not'' supposed to make his personal investigation on a murder and, after clashing several time with Vernoux (the inspector responsible of the actual, offical, police investigation), the latter threatens him to put him in custody if he keeps on with his personal crusade.


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* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome: Since he's retired, Kasdan is ''not'' supposed to make his personal investigation on a murder and, after clashing several time with Vernoux (the inspector responsible of the actual, offical, police investigation), the latter threatens him to put him in custody if he keeps on with his personal crusade.
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* AdaptationTitleChange: The original novel is just titled ''Miserere''.
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* LighterAndSofter: That's not immediately obvious due to the film's darkness, but some changes make the film this to the original novel.
** Contrary to Salek, Volokine is a heroin addict and temporarily relapses.
** Part of the novel's plot is connected to Kasdan DarkAndTroubledPast, [[spoiler:who is revealed to be a French soldier who deserted during a decolonisation war. He's not even "Kasdan", since the real Lionel Kasdan was an army buddy of him, who died during the campaign; he usurped this identity after deserting.]]
** In the novel, one of the murder victims is a PedophilePriest.
** The movie's ending is less creepy, too. [[spoiler:Both the novel and the movie end with the Colony being dismantled. In the movie, the protagonists managed to identify which of the children have been surgically altered with the voice weapon. In the novel, they don't and the last lines are InUniverse FridgeHorror where Kasdan realizes a sentient bioweapon is now somewhere outside, able to perform a terror attack.]]
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* ContrivedCoincidence: At the beginning, Salek has no clues beside a text extracted from the destroyed phone of a dead suspect he was investigating on. Said text solely consists in three incompletes names (full first name and surname's first letter). One of them is Goetz, which is how his investigation joined Kasdan's.

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* ContrivedCoincidence: At the beginning, Salek has no clues beside a text extracted from the destroyed phone of a dead suspect he was investigating on.on (in Morocco). Said text solely consists in three incompletes names (full first name and surname's first letter). One of them is Goetz, "Wilhelm G", which is how his investigation joined Kasdan's.
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* GlassShatteringSound: Subtlely used as a clue about the nature of the murders: several crime scenes have the surrdounding windows (or the stained glass in Goetz's church) broken.

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* GlassShatteringSound: Subtlely used as a clue about the nature of the murders: several crime scenes have the surrdounding surrounding windows (or the stained glass in Goetz's church) broken.
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[[quoteright:271:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/la_marque_des_anges__miserere.jpg]]
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** Goetz is a Chilean exile who fled Pinochet regime. [[spoiler:Except he isn't. He actually was a torturer at the time of Pinochet's dictatorship.]]

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** Goetz is a Chilean exile who fled Pinochet regime. [[spoiler:Except he isn't.[[spoiler:Or that's what his acquaintances initially think. He actually was a torturer at the time of Pinochet's dictatorship.]]
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** Goetz is a Chilean exile who fled Pinochet regime. [[spoiler:Except he isn't. He actually was a torturer at the time of Pinochet's dictatorship.]]
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* SpiritualSuccessor: To ''Film/TheCrimsonRivers''. Both are about a OldCopYoungCop duo WorkingTheSameCase to investigate a gruesome murder and unravelling a creepy conspiracy involving Nazis. Coincidentally, both are adaptated from (unrelated) novels by the same writer.

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* SpiritualSuccessor: To ''Film/TheCrimsonRivers''. Both are about a OldCopYoungCop duo two investigators WorkingTheSameCase and eventually [[OldCopYoungCop teaming up]] to investigate a gruesome murder and murder, then unravelling a creepy conspiracy involving Nazis. Coincidentally, both are adaptated from (unrelated) novels by the same writer.
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* WorkingTheSameCase: An international children kidnapping ring and the murder of a choir master in a Parisian church turn out to belong to the same case, linked by [[spoiler:a Nazi cult originating from Chile.]]

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* WorkingTheSameCase: An international children kidnapping ring and the murder of a choir master in a Parisian church turn out to belong to the same case, linked by [[spoiler:a Nazi cult originating from Chile. The kidnapped children were raised by the cult and some trained to become killers with their voice.]]

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* ArgentinaIsNaziland: Chile variant. [[spoiler:The Colony originated from a commune founded in Chile by a concentration camp commander.]]



** [[spoiler:In a bit of karmic justice, at the end of the film Salek cripples the leader of the Colony by firing a gun next to his ears in order to permanently deafen him.]]



* NoCommunitiesWereHarmed: [[spoiler:The Colony is a fictional counterpart of the real life Colonia Dignidad. Both were Chilean communes inhabited by German immigrants and led by a former Nazi, who served as a clandestine prison and torture center for Pinochet's regime. That being said, the Colonia Dignidad wasn't destroyed by a fire, didn't developed weapons based on human voice, and didn't have offshoots in foreign countries.]]

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* NoCommunitiesWereHarmed: [[spoiler:The Colony is a fictional counterpart of the real life Colonia Dignidad. Both were Chilean communes inhabited by German immigrants and led by a former Nazi, who served as a clandestine prison and torture center for Pinochet's regime. That being said, the Colonia Dignidad wasn't destroyed by a fire, didn't developed weapons based on human voice, and didn't have offshoots in foreign countries. Also, the founder of the Colonia Dignidad wasn't a concentration camp commander but a German army medic during World War Two.]]
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''The Mark of the Angels – Miserere'' (original title: ''La marque des anges – Miserere'') is a 2013 French thriller film directed by Sylvain White and based on Jean-Christophe Grangé's 2008 novel ''Miserere''.

The Interpol agent Frank Salek ([=JoeyStarr=]) is investigating on an international smuggling ring kidnapping children, while the retired French policeman Lionel Kasdan (Creator/GerardDepardieu) investigates the weird murder of Wilhelm Goetz, a choir master and Chilean refugee found dead in his church. Salek founds a clue involving Goetz and teams up with Kasdan...

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!!The film contains examples of:
* AdaptationDistillation: The movie lacks several plot points from the novel.
** In the novel, Volokine (the character who plays Salek's role) is amnesiac and regaining memories of [[spoiler:his childhood in the Colony]] plays a role in the plot. In the movie, he remembers all of this from the start.
** The movie entirely lacks Kasdan belonging to the community of Parisians French-Armenian. His own DarkAndTroubledPast is entirely adaptated out as well.
* AdaptationalJobChange: In the novel, Volokine works for French Police (the unit specialized in investigation and repression of crimes against minors) instead of Interpol.
* BigGood: Laura Bernheim, a high-ranking Interpol official leading the investigation on Blackstream and the children kidnappings.
* BlackSite: [[spoiler:The Colony and its various locations are clandestine interrogation and torture centers escaping from the law of the place they're built. Its source of inspiration, Colonia Dignidad, was a real life example of this as well.]]
* BloodFromEveryOrifice: Goetz (and several latter victims) are found dead with blood coming from both ears. According to the autopsy, both eardrums and inner ears have been destroyed and he died from a heart attack caused by the extreme pain.
* ContrivedCoincidence: At the beginning, Salek has no clues beside a text extracted from the destroyed phone of a dead suspect he was investigating on. Said text solely consists in three incompletes names (full first name and surname's first letter). One of them is Goetz, which is how his investigation joined Kasdan's.
* CrusadingWidower: Downplayed with Kasdan: the death of his wife (in backstory) caused him to retire from police; he isn't pursuing his personal investigation it to avenge her death (she died of cancer), but merely because retiring just after her death made him feel like his career ended on a tragic failure. [[spoiler:In the end, he felt saving Laura Bernheim solved this issue.]]
* DarkAndTroubledPast:
** Salek. [[spoiler:He's one of the kidnapped orphans who lived in the original Chilean colony.]]
** Laura Bernheim is a Holocaust survivor.
* DefectiveDetective: Salek is an unstable and violent drug addict who is regularly consuming unspecified pills (and gets in trouble for his addiction).[[note]]In the original novel, Volokine is a former heroin addict who relapses during the story.[[/note]]
* EarAche: Eardrum and hearing-based version.
** [[spoiler:The voice-based weapon developed by the Colony causes the destruction of both eardrums and inner ears, which kills several characters, starting with Goetz. Peter Hansen, a Chilean exile met by the protagonist, is a deaf survivor of this mean of torture. At the end of the interview, he lifs his hair, showing his ears are filled with scar tissue.]]
* ExperiencedProtagonist: Kasdan is a retired BRI agent[[note]]"Research and Intervention Brigade", a police unit are specialized in serious criminal cases such as armed robbery and kidnappings[[/note]] and, according to the InUniverse datation, Interpol agent Salek is in his forties.
* FlashbackNightmare: Salek background as [[spoiler:a former member of the Colony]] is partly established through his nightmares.
* GlassShatteringSound: Subtlely used as a clue about the nature of the murders: several crime scenes have the surrdounding windows (or the stained glass in Goetz's church) broken.
* InterpolSpecialAgent: Downplayed. Salek is an Interpol agent, but instead of being a solo, all-powerful secret agent, colleagues and hierarchy appear as well. On the other hand, he's stated to work for Interpol, not to be from a national police collaborating to an Interpol investigation.
* ItsPersonal: Kasdan started his own personal investigation because Goetz was an acquaintance, as a the choir master of the church Kasdan attends.
* TheLostLenore: [[spoiler:Salek managed to flee from Chile's Colony when he was young, but his sister was caught during the escape attempt and likely died when the Colony later was destroyed by a fire. She appears in several flashbacks.]]
* MakeMeWannaShout: [[spoiler:The murder weapon is the voice of a choirboy who suffered from a surgical operation of his throat to turn his voice into ranges allowing it to cause deafness or even death. It serves as torture[=/=]execution method used in black sites. The villain's plot in the movie consists in using it to murder Laura Bernheim.]]
* NightmareSequence: Finding children footprints on two crime scenes causes Kasdan to dream about being assaulted by creepy children.
* NoCommunitiesWereHarmed: [[spoiler:The Colony is a fictional counterpart of the real life Colonia Dignidad. Both were Chilean communes inhabited by German immigrants and led by a former Nazi, who served as a clandestine prison and torture center for Pinochet's regime. That being said, the Colonia Dignidad wasn't destroyed by a fire, didn't developed weapons based on human voice, and didn't have offshoots in foreign countries.]]
* OldCopYoungCop: Downplayed. Salek is an Interpol agent in his forties teaming up with a retired BRI policeman.[[note]][=JoeyStarr=] and Gérard Depardieu were respectively 46 and 65 when the film was shot[[/note]]
* PublicDomainSoundtrack: Gregorio Allegri's ''Miserere'' is featured in the soundtrack and refered in the plot itself (Goetz's choir recorded its version of the piece and a scene has Kasdan listening to this specific version). It's even in the title of the movie.
* RaceLift: In the original novel, Frank Salek is named Cédric Volokine and is described as a Frenchman of Russian ascend. In the movie, he is played by Black actor[=/=]singer [=JoeyStarr=].
* RealityEnsues: Since he's retired, Kasdan is ''not'' supposed to make his personal investigation on a murder and, after clashing several time with Vernoux (the inspector responsible of the actual, offical, police investigation), the latter threatens him to put him in custody if he keeps on with his personal crusade.
* RuleOfSymbolism: When Kasdan goes to the public front of the Colony in Belgium during the final act, the choir singers wear robes marked with a red shape similar to the S-rune (AKA the infamous SS symbol). [[spoiler:The Colony is leaded by Nazis]]. InUniverse, it is a shape taken from the whole symbol of the Colony (two triangles).
* SinisterMinister: [[spoiler:In a flashback by one of his victims, Goetz takes part in a torture session in Pinochet's Chile, and his outfit strongly implies he was a catholic priest at the time.]]
* SpiritualSuccessor: To ''Film/TheCrimsonRivers''. Both are about a OldCopYoungCop duo WorkingTheSameCase to investigate a gruesome murder and unravelling a creepy conspiracy involving Nazis. Coincidentally, both are adaptated from (unrelated) novels by the same writer.
* TragicKeepsake: The bracelet worn by Salek belonged to his sister. [[spoiler:He picked up in the charred ruin of the Colony.]]
* WorkingTheSameCase: An international children kidnapping ring and the murder of a choir master in a Parisian church turn out to belong to the same case, linked by [[spoiler:a Nazi cult originating from Chile.]]

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