Review of Polisse (2011) by Mark D — 01 Jan 2014

Even if I must accept that the Jury at the Cannes Film Festival has some bias in favor of French films, even if I must highlight that there were more artistically uncommon and engaging deliveries around the world in 2011, I must also accept that I cannot complain for the Jury's choice in 2011 like I somewhat can for their decision three years before with Entre les Murs.

Based on alarming real-life cases reported by the Parisian CPU (Child Protection Unit), the movie is a complete expectations surpasser. With a realism so striking that it almost becomes tangible to the viewer, Polisse assembles a cast of actresses and actors so good at their profession that the overall result is extraordinary (it really blows your mind), bringing along perfectly delineated and differentiated characters with performances out of this world (heck, out of this galaxy!). Even if the film acts as a collage of raw experiences, skipping from one event to the next one with an unforgiving pace as an attempt to mirror the vigorous pace that their lives follow and how they struggle everyday, constantly, to balance their personal lives with such a psychologically and physically demanding job, it also manages to encapsulate your senses and attention span to every single event depicted. This is done thanks to what may be the best screenplay of the year, which makes the characters fight against the authoritarian barriers within the CPU, and get emotionally involved with their cases and between themselves.

The realism of the film is the highlight. The performances, the directing, the screenplay, the characters, the vivid situations, all manage to make you emotionally involved. The film transmits emotions as effectively as any other human being could do. If they laugh, you want to laugh. If they dance, you want to dance at their beat. If they cry, they scream, they drink, they argue, they hit, shoot and run, you want to accompany them. You feel as a part of their team. You become a member.

I could argue that you have no human heart if you do not get also emotionally involved with at least 3 situations presented in the film. It happend to me at least five times: I wanted to laugh at the smartphone scene, wanted to cry twice and jumped (literally) from my seat out of two scares I did not see coming at all. As for the rest, they represent problems of our contemporary society that we should care about and fight against them as responsible citizens with the means given at our disposal.

We rarely get movies with such a precise emotional maturity. This film just opened my eyes a little bit more at the entrails of the bureaucratic organization of an admirable job like the CPU is. Even with their conflicts, with their occasional unprofessional behavior and with their childish management of conflicts, you learn how to respect them, because their human condition is no different than yours. It really isn't.

97/100.