Mathieu Kassovitz wears a Triton Subphotique

In The Wolf's Call, Antonin Baudry's 2019 submarine thriller, Mathieu Kassovitz plays the ALFOST, the four-star admiral who commands France's entire submarine fleet and its nuclear deterrent. The character has no name, only the rank. On his wrist is a watch almost nobody outside France would recognize: a Triton Subphotique.

Triton is one of the great forgotten French dive watches. The brand was born in 1963, its first watch designed by a former air-force colonel for La Spirotechnique, the diving company Jacques Cousteau helped found. In the 1960s a Triton cost more than a Rolex Submariner. Then it vanished, and stayed gone until a pair of enthusiasts revived it around 2015 with the Subphotique, a 500-metre diver named for the depth below which sunlight stops, the sub-photic zone. Its crown sits at twelve o'clock instead of three, which is how you spot one. For the man in charge of France's submarines, it is about as French-Navy as a dive watch gets, a point a French watch magazine made at the time.