Polisse, the third experiment behind the camera has fallen a little bit short for Maïwenn Le Besco, but keeps its originality at least in the title, a grammar mistake done by her son in writing the word “police”.

The director indulges too much, even rewarding herself in the role of a photographer in charge of gathering information on the work of the Police Child Abuse Brigade, having done a full immersion with them, documenting and researching all the material needed for writing a script that later was perfected with Emanuelle Bercot. The reason to shoot the movie comes from a documentary she saw on tv that left her eager to work on it. “What I wrote is based solely on facts that I have seen personally or on stories that the agents reported to me”. Stories of sexual abuses among fathers and daughters, grandchildren and grandparents, violences of teachers on pupils, abortions and much more. And real are also the lives of the policemen, played by wonderful actors, among them the more than hype Joey Starr. They are normal people, who love, hate, have secrets and fights, but try to support each other in order to get to the end of the day.

The result is a film in constant precarious equilibrium between romance and journalism, that in some cases questions the truth of the narration. Like the love story between the photographer-director and one of the agents, the hero of the unprotected, in which we see also the Italian actor Riccardo Scamarcio in the role of the “betrayed” ex. Probably the less necessary character of the film.
Nonetheless, what it is interesting in here, is the inquiring spirit of the movie, sometimes slipping into a sort of propaganda of the policeman job. Even if they are considered less prestigious by other police unities, the brigade working on child abuses is made by human beings, men and women, challenged everyday by all kind of atrocities.
Probably Maïwenn had in mind Police by Maurice Pialat (1985) or Le petit lieutenant by Xavier Beauvois (2005) when she was writing or shooting, but despite the great effort, it seems that her Polisse is suffering from too much professional difficulties and personal psychodramas of the main characters that make it simply perfect for a tv series with predictable high rates.

Monica Straniero
13.02.2012

POLISSE
A film by Maïwenn
Lucky Red distribuzione, 2011
web: www.luckyred.it/polisse