O Pequeno Tenente

As in previous Beauvois' movies, this film is about loss. The loss is everywhere in the movie : the loss of the dead child of the main female character, the loss of a normal couple life for the "petit lieutenant" and, finally, his loss. What makes the movie so interesting is the way in which it uses the form of the cope movie (film noir) as a way to reflect the hardships of living with the memory of the dead, to go on while things are forever changed by their disappearance. At the same time, the form of the cope movie is more than a mere pretext: the director is very much at ease with the conventions of the genre and is very skillful at going beyond by adding stunning realistic elements. There is no heroism there, only gloom and despair. No big man hunt, but a very trivial one. A very good movie. A must see for lovers of french film noir.

Extremely realistic. So much so that it's almost miserable to watch. We see a young and inexperienced police detective adjust to the aspects of his new job - from working through a pistol stoppage on the range, to knocking on doors looking for information about a murder, interviewing people who barely speak his language and trying to integrate with his new coworkers. We also see an experienced police veteran working through the problems that prolonged living in a stressful environment have produced as she returns to work after a two-year sabbatical. She takes the young Antoine with her throughout the course of a murder investigation, and the illustration of the dichotomy between them is nearly perfect. Avoided are the cliché kicking down of doors, Miami Vice / Hawaii 5-0-style firefights, Joe Friday detectives and "arch villains" that typically plague police films. The overall feeling that I had throughout the movie was monotony and despair as I identified with Antoine's feelings of separation, anxiety and of being overwhelmed. We see equally Commandant Vaudieu's sobriety struggle in scenes where her section is gathering at a bar after work for drinks while she orders a glass of mineral water. It's not a happy movie, it's not even entertaining, but it is realistic, extremely well played, and it is a moving, gritty drama that does for PJs what La Chambre des Officiers did for soldiers. It humanises them.

This is the procedure school. It starts as a rather hectic story about the young policeman starting his job in a hectic Paris and ends in a classic British murder case, as it's seen in many many TV productions from BBC.

But the Parisian police force is shown as real human beings this time, including alcohol problems, which is quite rare in French movies. The French attitude to alcohol has always been that there never can be any problems about it, because we're French. Anyway, after a while the movie is focused on the female Captain instead of the young copper. There's one main character in the beginning of the film and another at the end.

Rather OK as police movie, but rather soon to be forgotten anyway.

This movie starts out looking like a fairly conventional police procedural and ends up something much richer and subtler. It's full of nice little surprises that subvert our expectations of this sort of movie as we've come to know it from the Hollywood model. In fact, it's a wonderful example of how the American model can be molded into something more complicated. One example of that is the relationship between the "little lieutenant" and his attractive, middle-aged alcoholic supervisor. It's largely a filial-maternal relationship, but with subtle erotic undertones that keep us guessing at what might (or might not) develop between the two characters. In fact, little about the plot or the characters turn out the way you expect, and that's a fine thing. The movie also has a script written with exceptional skill and economy. We see only one scene between the lieutenant and his wife, and we hear a few additional comments about his marriage in other scenes, but from these brief bits we get a picture of a complex and problematic relationship that tells us as much as we need to know about the couple. While nothing about this movie is flashy, I haven't been able to get it out of my mind since I saw it earlier this week. It's thought provoking and I recommend it highly.

A young tough guy, eager to be a real cop solving real crime, and to be really cool. A middle-aged woman, alone, with personal problems but well organized and effective. Put these two together in a big city ("the jungle") in some cheesy office rooms, and you may expect to see another cliché cop-movie. But you're wrong.

First of all, this film contains not much action at all. The murder that things evolve around is not the main attraction, it is more of a catalyst for the development of the humans on screen. Furthermore, there is no music to "guide" us emotionally, and no extreme display of emotions (or overacting) as is so common. Instead we follow the characters at distance, but emotions are there, but like in real life, poorly articulated and often ambiguous. And the less glamorous work of attending an autopsy, and reactions to it, is also shown; just the sound is disgusting, and that scene of the film has for me a really artistic feeling to it: it highlights the "fleshy-ness" of the body, that it is not just an abstract piece in life, but something bulky, ugly, imperfect and vulnerable, which is quite a contrast to how the young tough guy probably considers himself.

These aspects together means that the film is more real. That does not have to be an advantage for a film - good film rarely limit itself to a display of reality. But to follow the development of the characters, their life and work, from a distance, sometimes with some police action added, as you do in a very precise way in this film, is very rewarding. This is a good drama with action content.