Polisse is a riveting French police procedural about the child protective services unit in Paris. Most cop movies are about how the cops solve the crime. Instead, Polisse is about the job’s emotional impact on the cops themselves – when their assignment is rescuing kids from various degrees of abuse. It’s an uncommonly good film.
Writer-director Maiwenn embedded herself with this police unit for several months. At the San Francisco International Film Festival screening, she said that, although the film is fictional, everything in the movie happened in real life (except for the love story between Maiwenn’s photographer and Joey Starr’s cop). Maiwenn also said that, although the real-life cops were rooting for her to do a movie about their most spectacular exploits, she chose to focus on a realistic cross-section of cases to depict the unit’s actual daily experience.
There are about ten cops in the unit, and it’s an excellent ensemble cast. Joey Starr is the cop who cares too much. Karin Viard (Paris, Potiche, Time Out) is the seemingly together cop whose family life has been sacrificed. Marine Fois (seen earlier this year in Four Lovers) is wound way too tight. Frederic Pierrot (I’ve Loved You So Long, Let It Rain, Sarah’s Key) is the conflict-averse commander trying to keep the lid on his rambunctious unit.
Polisse won the jury prize at Cannes and is on my list of Best Movies of 2012- So Far.
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