On August 15, cinemas began to release the crime drama «The Night of the 12th», which was screened at the 75th Cannes Film Festival and won 6 «César» awards, including Best Film, Director and Adapted Screenplay. The plot of the film is based on the documentary book «18.3 — A Year in the Judicial Police» by Pauline Guen, published in 2020. In the review below, we will determine how exciting the local detective intrigue is and what genre the film tends to be: a police detective story or a drama.
Genre crime drama
Director Dominique Moll
Starring Bastien Bouillon, Bully Lanner, Theo Cholbi, Johan Dionne, Mona Soalen, Lula Cotton-Frappier, Paul Jeanson, Camille Rutherford, Marc Bodnar, Anouk Grinberg
Premiere movie theaters
Year of issue 2024
Website IMDb
On the night of October 12, 2016, in the small French town of Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne, 21-year-old blonde Clara Royer left her friend’s house and walked home. Suddenly, an unknown man wearing a balaclava stood in front of her, doused her with gasoline and set her on fire with a lighter.
The next day, Grenoble police officers arrive at the girl’s fire-mutilated body, including the newly minted head of the department, Johannes Vives, and his experienced partner Marceau. The investigators are deeper and deeper into the tangled case, which is gaining new details, but it soon becomes clear that it will be extremely difficult to identify the real killer.
The meaning of this idea is both the ordinary, unattractive routine of investigators and the human self-reflection that everyone understands. This is what you should start from when watching the movie. But this factor does not make the movie worse.
In fact, the investigation here is very mundane, every day, far from genre Hollywood films, where the emphasis is on intrigue, suspense and, perhaps, a shocking conclusion. The case management of the Grenoble police officers is a tedious writing of endless reports, innocent bullying of a young and least experienced colleague. It talks about a failed marriage, quarrels, and the eternal struggle with a damn printer that irritatingly refuses to work. Again, this approach in Moll’s film is quite reasonable because the story looks as realistic as possible and arouses sincere interest.
The character of Bastien Bouillon, who leads the investigation, comes to the fore, taking into account his attitude to the case, his relationship with his partner Marceau, and their subsequent dynamics. It is obvious that both of them, unlike their colleagues, perceive Clara’s murder on a more personal level than just work. Each in their own way, they are going crazy from their own helplessness, complete hopelessness, and, ultimately, the impunity of the scum.
The metaphor of Johan Vives doing laps on a bicycle track is illustrative here. It is fully revealed after his thesis that every investigator has a case that worries him, makes him obsessed, and devours him from the inside. And until a person can «let it go», there will be no saving release from the hellish cycle. Therefore, the main intrigue of «The Night on the 12th» is not in revealing the identity of the killer, as is usually the case in typical genre films, but in whether the long-suffering Yohan will finally be able to free himself and move on.
In terms of form, this story is indeed a detective story, but in terms of content — everything is a bit more complicated. The ending, which is typical for the genre, is deliberately devalued here, because in real life, the course of events shown in the movie will hardly surprise anyone. If you are not ready for this approach, it is better to avoid the movie, because you will be inevitably disappointed.
The plot takes a turn for the worse in the final act, when two female characters appear in the story, Nadia, a new police officer, and Anouk Grinberg, an investigating judge. This segment is replete with some interesting conclusions, in particular, it directly suggests that something has clearly gone wrong in the relationship between men and women today.
«The Night on the 12th» successfully mimics a gloomy police detective story, but in reality, this slow, dialogic and undoubtedly gripping dramatic story is about a man who finds himself in a complete dead end. When, despite all your efforts, you have failed not only others but also yourself, and you have to live with a painful burden on your heart until you find the strength to move on. The viewer is invited to literally feel the triumph of injustice, to share that undeniably heavy, disappointing burden.