The Women and the Murderer

The documentary is about a series of murders committed in Paris in the nineties and the way the killer was finally caught. Young women were attacked in the entrances of apartment buildings and killed. The files ran separately for years and the connection between them was made late. Two women are at the centre: Martine Monteil, who headed the criminal brigade, and the mother of one of the murdered girls. Mona Achache and Patricia Tourancheau direct. It was released in 2021. The subject is not the detail of the killings but the delay in the investigation. Comparing DNA was a new method in France at the time and the legal framework for using it was under argument; the documentary shows how many months that cost. The mother is the second strand. After her daughter was killed she pressed the police and the prosecutors, made her own inquiries, and would not let the file be closed. It is built on archive footage, audio recordings and interviews made in the present; there is no reconstruction. The killer himself takes up little room, and that is a deliberate decision; the narrative refuses to put him at the centre. Who it is for: viewers who follow crime documentary and accounts of real investigations. Who it is not for: the subject is heavy, the narrative is slow because it concentrates on institutional delay, and it is hard going for anyone close to such a case.