L.627

Lulu, a policeman in a Paris narcotics unit, takes his work seriously and knows the system does not function. The team has no vehicle, the radio is broken, and the camera used for surveillance was bought with his own money. The film solves no case; it records the daily work as it is. Bertrand Tavernier directed, from a screenplay by Michel Alexandre, a former officer who spent fifteen years in narcotics. Didier Bezace plays Lulu. The title comes from the article of the French public health code covering drug use. It was remembered as much for the reaction it caused as for its realism: the interior ministry and the police organisation attacked it hard, because the film showed the police not as bad but as helpless and unresourced. The texture is documentary. Long waits, fruitless surveillance and paperwork take up most of the running time. Addicts and informers are not flat; the film places them inside the same system. Who it is for: viewers who like realistic police narratives and French social cinema. Who it is not for: anyone expecting suspense; the film is deliberately slow and scattered.