Polisse

I had no idea that this film had many nominations at last year's César awards (the french Oscars). I started to see it on cable and immediately got interested in the subject and the way they handle it. It's straight forward but subtle at the same time. It has a good moving pace, there's always something going on. The array of characters is very rich and even though there's no time to get more deeply into their private worlds, you get to understand that they are mere human beings doing their best at their job, which is trying to protect all "minors" from abusive situations. I specially liked the realism of the characters, you end up caring for most of them and wishing them well in their actions.

Polisse is a documentary style feature film, which follows French police working with child molestation and abuse. We're follow them in a film without a plot, only everyday life and troubles, and through dinners and bar escapades. The cases and the language is really rough stuff, and this is obviously not for everyone. If you're easily offended, keep away.

We're given no explanation, just follow what happens as a fly on the wall. So is the director here, Maiwenn, which uses a small tourist camera, taking pictures all the time. Strange, and looking quite unprofessional, but then she is originally an actor. We're looking at actors, but this is all based upon real life, we're told, at least.

We see some horrific cases of them unveiling child abuse of different kinds, and when they talk in their spare time, the language is very graphic. Maybe this is a work hazard, still I find it strange that these grown ups talk low life language, using all kinds of sexual words when they seem to have a normal conversation. It might be right, but maybe this feels too much for an ordinary viewer. At least I thought so, and I'm not easily offended.

Two more things irritate. First of all Maiwenn, photographing everywhere with her old camera. She looks lame doing this, and ruins the impression of this as a serious movie. Sue's like a misfit, or bimbo in this film. She's acting, and I don't understand her mission in this. But being writer and director, she obviously needed a role as actor as well. With better professional help, the film would have been way better. Still there's lots of stuff which will hit you hard here.

The police acting like this in their spare time makes us also questioning their motives as well as their credibility and them being real professionals, though we really down to earth understand they are well qualified personnel. But from time to other you really wonder...

Interesting, and nice try, but still the film has some troubles impossible to disregard.

The second main problem is we never follow out the interesting things which we see. It's all small fragments. We don't get to know people. Instead we get longer pieces of non-important dancing at night clubs and ridiculous discussions. Still this is interesting, and worth to watch. Just expect to be annoyed, insulted, chocked, bored and disgusted every other minute.

now that is a good film..too much talk in the dialog, which is famous in the french cinema and drama in general ,but this time it was well used i was not bothered by it,it's stayed real,and dealing with a true realistic problem without exaggeration, presenting it as is- i felt like as if its a reality drama ,that a hidden camera was shooting a real life events not drama,that is success,the film is deep and subtle and its emotional too,acting is very well carried out... even by the minors who were interviewed and the children,i must emphasis on" Maïwenn's" acting ,it was very calm yet deep and superb."Joey starr" was good too in some moments though he was exaggerating in anger in others but over all good acting i say if you have a chance to go watch this film, please do it s worth it really.

The average time that someone can work in child protection is two years. Some last longer, or there would not be supervisors, but it is a rough business, as this film depicts.

What should grab you is that they move from case to case without any continuity. This is the real world of child protection. You deal with a druggie mother today, a pederast grandfather tomorrow, and neglected or abused children the next day.

Some may find the language off-putting, but that is the way it is. You are under such stress during work, that you have to relieve it somehow after you get off. It may be crude, but it is effective.

I can also relate to those who lose it occasionally. You can put your heart and soul into this job, and get frustrated easily by parents and the bureaucracy.

The film may have been actors, but it has a documentary feel as they portray the action as it really happens.

Polisse is a cop movie, but it's that rare cop movie that doesn't seek to glamourize the cops or make them out into heroes. For starters, instead of focusing on the more popular homicide unit, it's about a child protection unit (CPU) in the neighbourhood of Belleville in Paris. The CPU deals with some of the ugliest cases, mostly involving the sexual abuse of children.

Writer/director Maïwenn (who herself has a small role as a bourgeois photojournalist who embeds herself with the police) handles the difficult material well, never shying away from showing the police as the messy imperfect people they are. These are people who care deeply about what they do but also people who screw up, who fight amongst each other, who cheat on their spouses and don't have enough time for their friends and their family. Despite the fact that the movie is about two hours long, the huge ensemble means that there's a lot of ground to cover, but to Maïwenn and the actors credit, they characters all feel fleshed out and real.

The script is very textured and dense, and I'm not sure the subtitles do justice to the sheer volume of words and the difference in class that the dialects play with, but it's a wonderful great film, very epic in scope. Don't go into it expecting a linear simplistic story. Plot lines are introduced, but seldom wrapped up, but this works to the film's advantage, showing that in many cases this is as far as it can go for the police involved.