When an 11-year-old girl is brutally raped and murdered in a quiet French village, a police detective who has forgotten how to feel emotions--because of the death of his own family in some k... Read allWhen an 11-year-old girl is brutally raped and murdered in a quiet French village, a police detective who has forgotten how to feel emotions--because of the death of his own family in some kind of accident--investigates the crime, which turns out to ask more questionsWhen an 11-year-old girl is brutally raped and murdered in a quiet French village, a police detective who has forgotten how to feel emotions--because of the death of his own family in some kind of accident--investigates the crime, which turns out to ask more questions
- Awards
- 3 wins & 3 nominations
- L'infirmier
- (as Daniel Leroux)
- Le policier anglais
- (as Robert Bunzl)
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaAccording to Roger Ebert, "this is a film about a man whose life gives him no source of joy, and denies him the consolation of ignorance. He misses, and he knows he misses. He has the willingness of a saint, but not the gift. He would take the suffering of the world on his shoulders, but he is not man enough."
- Quotes
[first lines]
l'inspecteur de police Pharaon De Winter: I'm coming.
- Alternate versionsItalian distributor BIM originally removed about 2 minutes of sex footage from the Italian theatrical release in order to avoid a 'not under 18' rating. When the press criticized this self-censorship attempt, the distributor reissued the film in its original, integral form.
- ConnectionsFeatured in Siskel & Ebert: Instinct/The Loss of Sexual Innocence/Limbo (1999)
- SoundtracksLe Vertigo, Rondeau. Modérément
from "Pièce de Clavecin"
Music by Pancrace Royer
Performed by William Christie
Courtesy of harmonia mundi
Dumont makes his bleak, desolate vision obvious right from the start, with the horrendous discovery of a murdered and mutilated child left naked and bleeding in a stark, autumnal field. The image is both shocking and brutal; with Dumont giving us a punch to the stomach right from the very first frame with a lingering close-up of the wound and filleted body parts. It's an image that both establishes and surmises the film as a thematic whole; the loss of innocence being central both with the murder of the child and with the character of Pharaon himself. It is the idea of back-story and the fragile demeanour of Pharaon - and to an extent the evocative performance of non-professional actor Emmanuel Schotte - which anchors the film, giving the audience an emotional spectator. He is also our representation within the film, mirroring the feelings of the audience if not quite our actions. After the aforementioned discovery there are no macho heroics; Pharaon reacts on an emotional level unseen in films of this nature, running back to his car, tears streaming down his face, lost in a kind of detached melancholy that continues throughout the film.
Over the course of the film, the narrative continues to unfold at a slow and deliberate pace, though we quickly realise that the real detective story at hand is not necessarily about the murder of the child, but more importantly, what has happened to make Pharaon the way he is. Has Pharaon had some sinister part in all of this, or is he merely a constant observer. The idea of voyeurism is an important one in Dumont's work, with the camera rarely moving; always static, removed from the context of the scene and merely recording things for our benefit. This gives the film a greater degree of realism, though may be a little tiresome for viewers weaned on a more westernised approach to cinema, with one hypnotic scene in particular finding our central protagonist tending his allotment for what seems like the best part of fifteen minutes.
As the film continues to unfold, and the clues begin to add up, we realise that this isn't going to have a clear-cut, moralistic ending akin to a routine police/crime thriller. Then again, with a central character who lives at home with a controlling mother, who adores the woman who lives down the street and allows her boyfriend to belittle him at every available opportunity and often stands monosyllabic at the back of a room... how on earth could it? With L'Humanité (1999), Dumont has attempted to create a stripped down, bare-naked form of ambient cinema, in which it is the little character details and passages of silence, broken only by shocking violence and mechanical sex, that go towards creating the story.
The ending of the film continues in this same vein and acts as a sort of shocking epiphany, in which every action and subtle line of dialog that has occurred during the epic running time is suddenly given a whole new meaning. Dumont has proved with this, his second feature, that he can reach beyond the tiresome kitchen sink theatrics of his first film, La Vie de Jesus (1997) and incorporate distancing naturalistic techniques (no camera movements, no artificial light, non-professional actors, etc) to create a film that is both horrendous and intoxicating in equal measures. Though enjoy is certainly the wrong word to use with a film this bleak and confrontational, those amongst you who admire the work of forward thinking European auteurs like the aforementioned Michael Haneke, Gaspar Noé and Lars von Trier will certainly admire and appreciate Dumont's shattering tour-de-force.
- ThreeSadTigers
- Mar 23, 2008
- Permalink
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Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Official sites
- Languages
- Also known as
- Humanité
- Filming locations
- Bailleul, Nord, France(Village)
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Gross US & Canada
- $113,495
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $10,075
- Jun 18, 2000
- Runtime2 hours 21 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 2.35 : 1
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