France,
2005, 110 min
Shown in 2006
CREDITS
- dir
-
Xavier Beauvois
- prod
-
Pascal Caucheteux
- scr
-
Xavier Beauvois, Guillaume Breaud, Jean-Eric Troubat
- cam
-
Caroline Champetier
- editor
-
Martine Giordano
- cast
-
Jalil Lespert, Nathalie Baye, Roschdy Zem, Antoine Chappey, Jacques Perrin, Xavier Beauvois, Bérangère Allaux
- source
-
Studio Canal, 1 Place du Spectacle, 92130 Issy-les-Moulineaux, France. FAX: +33-1-71-35-11-98. EMAIL: fleur.mcgregor@canal-plus.com.
OTHER
Police academy graduate Antoine Derouere (Jalil Lespert, The Last Mitterrand, SFIFF 2005) is so keen to tackle crime head-on that he joins a plainclothes crime unit in Paris, even though it means leaving his wife behind in Normandy. Most of his new colleagues look at the work as just a daily grind and greet his enthusiasm with good-natured condescension, but he impresses Commandant Caroline Vaudieu (Nathalie Baye), a recovering alcoholic who takes a motherly interest in the rookie lieutenant. What looks like a mere clash of attitudes takes a darker turn when the unit investigates a murder, and Antoine’s passion for the case and his partner’s disinterest in it lead to a tragedy that rocks both Vaudieu and the department. Director Xavier Beauvois’ César-nominated drama is not the standard policier. Like Antoine’s colleagues, the filmmaker is not that interested in crime, instead preferring to chart the personalities inside the station house and the cyclical nature of a job where days go by with nothing better to do than hone one’s marksmanship, play videogames and chew the fat until the next crime wave hits. Lespert imbues Antoine with the eagerness of a bloodhound let loose on his first hunt, but the film’s emotional center is Baye’s dedicated, damaged investigator—the spiritual, if warmer, cousin of Prime Suspect’s Inspector Jane Tennison—fighting to stay on the wagon and solve the case. This is one police procedural in which it is not the luridness of the crime that captures attention but the human heart behind the investigation.
—Pam Grady
FACTOID #80
Irving ’Bud’ Levin, owner of San Francisco’s Metro Theatre, founded the SFIFF in 1957. However, Levin credited the idea for creating the Festival to the Italian consul general at the time, Pierluigi Alvera, who became one of its staunchest supporters.
