Polisse

Polisse was my favourite film at the recent Sydney Film Festival. A french film from writer, director, star Maiween, it tells the story of the Child Protection Unit in Paris. It was absolutely riveting from start to finish.

An ensemble piece that moves at a cracking pace, it could be forgiven for not establishing character, but it actually manages to do that and do it very well. We are introduced to this group of close knit colleagues as they go about their day trying to balance the horrors they have to deal with (rapists, kidnappers, abusers, paedophiles) with their personal lives.

Maiween spent quite some time with a real CPU and told us in the Q&A that all the cases she featured are just like ones she witnessed and with that experience she brought an almost documentary feel at the same time as adding creative drama and plot to moments of the story as they rush through case after case. The performances are all excellent and the editing is sublime (it won a French Oscar for this).

It's shocking, emotional, intense and surprisingly very funny.

Highly recommended if you like hard-hitting films that deal with serious subjects in a very human and darkly humorous way.

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.

In Paris, the photographer Melissa (Maïwenn) is assigned by the Ministry of the Interior to document the daily activities of the BPM – the Police Division for Child Protection under the command of Chief Baloo (Frederic Pierrot).

Along the days, Melissa witnesses and takes photos of pedophiles, children and women abusers and abused and befriends the team of detectives, sharing their investigations along the working days and leaning how their jobs affect their private lives. Soon she has a love affair with the sensitive and emotive Detective Fred (Joeystarr).

"Polisse" is an entertaining French docudrama about a team of police officers responsible to protect children from abuses. The screenplay uses ellipsis and it seems that is based on true stories. It is good to see how the team works and their relationship outside the work, showing that the officers are human beings with families and problems affected by their work.

The weakest part is the character Melissa, with her touristic and unprofessional camera, and taking her glasses off and loosening her hair in a silly behavior. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Polissia" ("Polisse")

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.

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.