Black Dossier

In a small provincial town in the fifties a young judge newly come to his post begins to investigate a suspicious death. Facing him is an influential man among the town’s notables, and as the file advances it becomes clear that everyone is tied to somebody. The judge’s insistence on reaching the truth leads to a great scandal. The film tells that justice does not work of its own accord and shows how the town’s web of relations slows it down. The account puts at its centre not the solving of a crime but the resistance inside an institution; the young judge’s inexperience is both his weakness and his one advantage. Jean-Marc Bory and Daniele Delorme appear in Andre Cayatte’s hundred and fifteen minute French film, completed in 1955.