Police

Inspector Mangin is after a Tunisian drug network in Paris. In the interrogation room he shouts, slaps and threatens; he does it as routine. Then he encounters Noria, one of the women inside the network, and at some point begins to want to protect her. The subject is not crime but a man with power losing hold of himself. Mangin does not trust his own feeling and Noria promises him nothing; the coldest thing about the film is that her motives are never fully explained. The form is Maurice Pialat's usual method: scenes start in the middle, speech overlaps, cuts explain nothing. Some of the interrogation material draws on statements taken from real police officers, and a wide margin was left for improvisation. Gérard Depardieu won the best actor prize at the Venice film festival in 1985 for this role. Sophie Marceau plays Noria, one of the films in which she moved away from her young-star image. Richard Anconina plays the lawyer. Who it is for: viewers who like French realism and crime films that refuse the templates of the genre. Who it is not for: anyone wanting a clean plot; the film abandons its investigation and brings nobody to resolution.