Agatha Christie : La reine du crime

In some of my user-comments I jokingly mentioned that, next to my wife and daughter - and possibly my mother - dame Agatha Christie is the most important woman in my life. The more I read of her work, and the more film/TV-adaptations of her work I watch, this actually becomes less and less of a joke. This is perhaps a bit of a dramatization, but my life would be a lot more boring without reading the occasional Christie novel or watching a convoluted whodunit based on her stories.

This relatively short and superficial documentary is mainly just interesting for people who are not or hardly familiar with Christie and her legacy. For the more avid fans, and certainly for those who read her autobiography, it doesn't have a lot of new info or footage to share. The parts that are most interesting are recording of Agatha's Christie's actual voice, and footage filmed by herself during archeological expeditions she went on with her second husband.

What I personally admired about this documentary is how it aptly emphasizes what an autodidactic, independent, mentally strong, ambitious and borderline stubborn woman she was. She studied, did voluntary nursing work, traveled around the world alone and with partners, and responded uniquely to her first husband's adultery. Agatha Christie was a feminist before the term existed, and she probably wouldn't have thought of herself as one. Her many interests and passions, all of which frequently feature in her novels and plays, are briefly covered as well. There's the use of herbs in medicine, archeology, exotic places as well as small traditional villages, large family estates, ...

It's really cool as well that Mrs. Christie's actual grandson and great-grandson are among the people/experts interviewed. How I wished she was my grandmother!

An absorbing doc about the queen of crime,featuring vintage color footage with Agatha Christie's voice over ; it focuses on her life and only the novels which have a connection with her adventures (she's compared to a female Indiana Jones ) are mentioned .During the war, her work as a volunteer nurse led her to the hospital pharmacy where she discovered the poisons and became an expert in the subject : it spawned "the mysterious affair of Styles " (and many others) ;her ceaseless travels all around the world spawned "murder on the orient express" ; archeaology inspired "death on the Nile " ...

Although she never declared herself a feminist ,she was :a woman who traveled alone in orient in faraway countries (where they knew "the murder of Roger Acroyd"!) ,who was the first woman to practise standing surf ,who took her driving licence to be independent of men, who married her second husband fourteen years her junior,archeaologist Max Mallowan:she financially helped him to carry out excavations ,and she lent a hand ,becoming a respected assistant. The documentary tries to explain her disappearance after her first husband walked out on her, but it will remain a mystery ,the author herself does not mention it in her biography.

They say she had come to hate her Hercule Poirot ,but he followed her throughout her career and it's probably a legend ;as for her work, they point out that the thirties were her heyday,and one can find no fault in this opinion ; her involvement in stage dramas is not passed over in silence :one sees her talking with the director and the actors ; "the mousetrap" has become a must in London ,in the same way as Sherlock Holmes ' flat , Madame Tussaud, Carnaby Street or Abbey Road.

She was made a dame in 1971,three years after her husband ,which made them one of the rare couples to be both knighted.

An excellent documentary ,but perhaps too short (52 min).