Case 137

Bluesky

With a background of the 2018 Paris Yellow Vests protests Dominik Moll delivers an absorbing account of how a French internal affairs officer (a pitch perfect performance from Léa Drucker) attempts to uncover precisely the involvement her colleagues had in the serious injuries to a 20-year-old protestor.

It could have been cumbersome given the amount of detail required to be sifted and at times the narrative seems in danger of succumbing, but it’s Drucker’s mesmerising performance that papers over the cracks.

The topic of police corruption and alleged brutality could not be more timely and it follows in the wake of Moll’s much admired and award-winning thriller The Night of the 12th.

The incident that sparks the inquiry revolves around a young man who took part in the Yellow Vest protests and is shot by the police during the other, resulting in a fractured skull and brain damage.

Drucker’s investigator adopts a clinical approach to the proceedings, without obviously taking sides in a series of straightforward interviews which are shot with a documentary precision. The driver for the investigator's relentless probes is never fully explained, nor her journey transitioning from police officer to policing her contemporaries.

With his writing parter Gilles Marchand, Moll avoids any of the obvious dramatic tropes, preferring instead to follow what would have been the police’s own procedures, demonstrating what a totally thankless task such investigations can turn out to be.

Drucker’s sallow complexion and despairing eyes bring home forcefully the hopeless nature of the task in hand with even the top brass questioning her commitment to the truth in the face of a macho police environment.

The actress should definitely be in the running for any performances awards either in Cannes or elsewhere.

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