Police
(1985)
Directed
by: Maurice
Pialat
Written
by: Catherine
Breillat and Sylvie Pialat and Jacques Fieschi and Maurice Pialat.
Starring:
Gérard
Depardieu (Louis Vincent Mangin), Sophie Marceau (Noria), Richard Anconina (Lambert),
Pascale Rocard (Marie Vedret), Sandrine Bonnaire (Lydie), Franck Karoui (René),
Jonathan Leïna (Simon), Jacques Mathou (Gauthier), Bernard Fuzellier (Nez Cassé),
Bentahar Meaachou (Claude), Yann Dedet (Dédé), Mohamed Ayari (Momo), Abdel
Kader Touati (Maxime), Jamil Bouarada (Jean), Bechir Idani (Barman René), Sylvain
Maupu (Clément).
The first
half of Maurince Pialat’s Police seems to be a gritty police procedural – but a
tough cop Mangin (Gerard Depardieu) trying to break a drug ring, and doesn’t
care to play by the rules to do it. It opens with Mangin getting a tip from a
criminal – who knows his two options are to flip or go to jail. This leads
Mangin and his men to the apartment of Simon (Jonathan Leina), who is from
Algeria, and his young girlfriend Noria (Sophie Marceau) – who Mangin brings in
for questioning. For the first hour of the movie we watch as Mangin and his men
do increasingly violent, corrupt things to try and get the results they want.
They want a confession, and even if they have no evidence, they’ll push harder
and harder and harder to get it. There is nothing against Simon and Noria for
example other than the testimony of the guy who flipped – the cops find nothing
in their apartment. But that doesn’t mean they’ll let Simon and Noria go. It
also doesn’t mean they are innocent either – as the movie makes clear they are
not.
The
film’s main writer was Catherine Breillat – who had already directed a couple
of films by this point, but here is writing for Pialat. She is, as always,
interested in the sexuality of teenage girls – here, the 19-year-old Noria. For
the first hour, this film feels like it is about the thin line between cops and
criminals – how similar they are, and can be. Depardieu’s Mangin feels like a
villain – a heartless, violent middle aged man who doesn’t care about right or
wrong, or the truth – and who will do anything to get a confession. And Noria
feels like a doe eyed, fresh faced victim – perhaps her boyfriend dealt some
drugs, but now she is being dragged down and punished right alongside him –
even with no evidence.
Then, a
strange thing happens about halfway through the movie. It jumps ahead a few
weeks – Noria has been released from jail, but Simon is still inside, even
without much in the way of evidence against him. We end up spending less time
in the police station – and more time outside of it, with the same people.
Mangin becomes a more complicated character – even somewhat sympathetic – a
lonely widower, hardly a true believer in his police work either. He doesn’t
think twice of hanging out with defense lawyer Lambert (Richard Anconina), who
like everyone else in the film is morally bankrupt. Much of the second part of
the film is a long night out with Mangin, Lambert, Noria (who hired Lambert)
and young prostitute Lydie (Sandrine Bonnaire) – who Lambert likes, and is
trying to get Mangin to arrest her pimp to get her away from her. Lambert falls
for Noria – and starts to believe it’s love. But it’s more complicated than
that for Noria – who may have stolen some money from Simon’s family, and is
looking for protection.
One can
certainly argue that the film’s view is a little misogynistic – as during the
course of the movie the violent, abusive cop becomes a more complex,
sympathetic character, whereas the doe eyed seeming victim becomes cold and
calculating – using men to get what she wants. She essentially becomes a femme
fatale – using stupid men for her own purposes. This is, oddly, in line with
much of Breillat’s work – and it always rubs me the wrong way.
And yet,
Police still largely works – even with this. It is mainly because in Pialat’s
film, everyone is flawed, everyone is corrupt. The line between good and evil
doesn’t exist, as everyone is corrupted in some way, shape or form. Can you
really feel bad for Depardieu’s Mangin – given what we see him do, even if
Noria leaves him heartbroken? And given everything we see in the film, is Noria
really worse – or just responding to the circumstances that she had in front of
her? It’s a testament to the performances by Depardieu and Marceau that they
end of complicating these characters, who could have seemed like constructs
created by a screenwriter to cynically manipulate.
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