Death in The Girardin Garden (Smrt v zahradě Girardinů)

This historical crime story, boasting a star-studded cast, takes us to 18th century France, where one of the greatest figures of the French enlightenment movement, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, dies under mysterious circumstances. It happens, as the title suggests, in the garden of Marquis de Girardin, a great admirer of Rousseau and his last pupil. This TV adaptation, based on the stage play by Josef Bouček, focuses on the investigation of this death many years later, prompted by the tension surrounding Rousseau’s legacy. Did the philosopher, whose thoughts lie at the roots of the Great French Revolution, really die of natural causes? The story was brought on screen by Dušan Klein, for whom crime and detective fiction certainly aren’t an unknown territory, and who is well-known also thanks to his series of Poets films made between years 1982 and 2016. (bk)