POLISSE MAY ARREST YOUR ATTENTION
Although most Parisians would not enjoy experiencing what is presented in Polisse, the film nevertheless won a Jury award at the Cannes Film Festival in 2011. Directed by Maïwenn (who also plays a cop, Mélissa), several child abuse cases are presented one after another, featuring victims, pedophiles, and the police who interview them. Filmviewers also see the private lives of Children’s Protection Unit personnel on and off the job. In French realist style, there is no narrative, no plot, and no finale—just a succession of raw slices of life. American eyes, however, perceive several oddities: We are denied information in many cases about how the victims were identified, though in one case someone peeps over a bathroom stall to see a coach and a teenager together. Later, the teenager is mortified that his coach did anything so severe that he would be incarcerated for years. In addition, the police seem unprofessional: The accused are not Mirandized, and no lawyers advise them; the clear aim is to achieve self-incriminating confessions. The police also conduct a raid without a warrant. Most “pedophiles” are recent arrivals in France from Muslim countries, where customs about family life differ substantially. The insensitivity of the police toward cultural differences speaks volumes, and the home lives of police are hardly exemplary; they fail to perceive how their own situations might parallel those whom they arrest, and their outbursts of emotion suggest the need for serious anger management therapy. Insofar as Polisse appears designed to provoke discussion in France without being preachy, the film resembles Ken Loach’s exposés of government officials (social workers) who play god in Ladybird, Ladybird (1994) and Oranges and Sunshine (2011). MH