THE OPINION OF THE “WORLD” – NOT TO BE MISSED
On the night of October 12, 2016, in Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne (Savoie), a 21-year-old young woman, Clara, was murdered, burned alive by a hooded man, as she was returning from an evening with friends. . A brigade of the Grenoble judicial police is dispatched to the scene to carry out the investigation, which we know from the outset that it will not be resolved. An intertitle revealed it to us from the start of the film, immediately dismissing the idea of a possible suspense, and thus warning us that the attention will have to be elsewhere.
In this Night of 12, it will be the daily work carried out by the police on the case that will guide us. A meticulous and obsessive work from which, in the same way, the film leads its subject. Which concerns men, and more specifically their relationship to women, the place they grant them, the violence they are capable of unleashing against them. These questions haunt the film. They determine its darkness and gravity.
great accuracy
The femicide referred to here actually happened. It appears, among many others, in 18.3, a year at the PJ, by Pauline Guéna (Denoël, 2020) – thick work in which the author recounts her twelve months of immersion in the services of the PJ of Versailles. It is this incident of a young girl who was burned alive that caught the attention of Dominik Moll. She inspired him to make his seventh feature, whose formal power, quality of writing, intelligence of the casting match those of his first films, Harry, a friend who wishes you well (2000) and Lemming (2005).
The film highlights the life of a brigade faced with lack of means, loneliness, frustration and the haunting idea that the culprit may never be identified.
When developing the screenplay, the filmmaker worked with Gilles Marchand, his accomplice from the start. Together, they crafted a solid score with great accuracy. A favor for actors who, even in the smallest roles, find a way to express their uniqueness. They are numerous. Each, however, asserts itself and stands out in a flash, contributes to the creation of a tenuous mesh, works to build a perfectly straight story.
There are the men of the brigade, their group leader Yohan (Bastien Bouillon) – fastidious and taciturn – and his old teammate Marceau (Bouli Lanners), whose dream was to become a literature teacher. Then Clara’s parents, her best friend Nanie (Pauline Serieys), her ex-boyfriends. Questioned, all tell a story, reveal a behavior that some, with regard to the murder, will question, others not. Everyone brings their grain of salt to the discussion. Along the way, the film sheds light on the day-to-day life of a brigade faced with a lack of resources, loneliness, frustration and the haunting idea that the culprit may never be identified.
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