Every day, AlloCiné recommends a film to (re)watch on TV. Tonight: the director of “Harry, a Friend Who Wants Good” signs a masterful thriller, rewarded with 6 Césars.
At the PJ, each investigator comes across a crime one day or another that he cannot solve and that haunts him. For Yohan, it’s Clara’s murder. The interrogations follow one another, there is no shortage of suspects, and Yohan’s doubts continue to grow. Only one thing is certain, the crime took place on the night of the 12th.
This pitch is that of a true masterpiece of crime fiction, released in theaters in 2002: The Night of the 12th. Adapted from the book 18.3 – one year at the PJ by Pauline Guéna, the fascinating feature film by Dominik Moll (Harry, a friend who wishes you well), harsh and realistic, distils an unvarnished statement on feminicides. You won’t come out unscathed…
Praised by the press with a very flattering average of 4.4 out of 5 on AlloCiné, the masterful The Night of the 12th was the big winner of the 48th Cesar ceremony. The feature film thus gleaned six trophies and not the least: Best Film, Best Direction, Best Supporting Actor for Bouli Lanners, Best Male Actor for Bastien Bouillon, Best Adaptation and Best Sound.
For this film of great power, Dominik Moll retained an investigation from Pauline Guéna’s book in particular, that of the assassination of a young woman who was set on fire as she returned home.
“Every investigator one day comes across a crime that hurts more than the others”
“Pauline briefly recounts this investigation and focuses on one of the police officers, Yohan. It is this man’s relationship to this affair that touched me”notes the filmmaker. “I admit that the sordid aspect of the crime made me hesitate, I am often disturbed by the fascination of certain films with violence. But after reading these few pages, they began to haunt me like the death of this young woman haunts Yohan.”
“The book said that every investigator one day comes across a crime that hurts more than the others, that for some mysterious reason it sticks in him like a splinter, and that the wound never stops becoming infected”continues Dominik Moll. “I felt that it was not just about finding the name of a murderer, that the film could tell the story of the obsession and growing confusion of a scrupulous investigator in the face of an unsolved crime.”
Tonight on France 2 at 9:10 p.m.