Intelligent, dark, uncomfortable, and important
In Grenoble, France, a young woman fails to return home, and is found the next morning in a park, burned to death. And so begins the investigation that will haunt the detectives and the victim’s family and friends.
The Night of the 12th is based on the book 18.3 A year at the JP [Judicial Police] by Pauline Guéna. She spent a year with the Judicial Police in Versailles, and one of the cases they investigated formed the basis of this film.
Director Dominik Moll working with Gilles Marchand on the screenplay, has produced a tight script, which focusses on the victim and her life, as much, if not more, than on police procedure. Moll has taken a sadly all-too-common scenario, and used it as the framework for an interrogation of male-female relationships and roles.
Starring as Captain Yohan, Bastien Bouillon (The Crimson Rivers) gives a poignant performance as the detective who is haunted by this case. The wonderful Bouli Lanners is Marceau, his friend and colleague. The supporting cast provides a parade of varied but realistic characters, including Clara’s lovers, friends, family, and other judicial officers. Of note is Anouk Grinberg as the Examining Magistrate who pushes to have Clara’s case reopened. She brings a documentary-realism to this small role. Look out for Grinberg as Coco Chanel in the up-coming series Balenciaga.
Clara’s love-life is deconstructed by interrogating her many lovers. Each of these men seem capable of killing her. Yet are they the ones being treated as suspects, or is it Clara herself? Moll uses this (sadly too common) case as a framework for an examination of male violence, particularly that used against women. It is also an interrogation of the French judicial system itself and the (unbelievably) still prevailing attitude, that a woman who enjoys a varied sex life is somehow asking to be set alight in a park.
This film is not a comfortable watch. But it is a rich, and valuable one, rewarding in both thematic and cinematic terms.
The Night of the 12th opens on October 13th. A special screening will take place tonight October 12th (the date of Clara’s murder) at Palace Nova Eastend and Wallis Mitcham.
Click here for further details and to book tickets for Palace Nova.
Click here for details and tickets for Wallis Mitcham.
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