Review: ‘Polisse’

Winner of the 2011 Cannes Jury Prize, Polisse (misspelling intentional) is an intense, emotional journey inside a Paris Child Protection Unit. Writer/director Maiwenn plays a photographer tasked with capturing the unit from the inside, and what she discovers is both more and less than we might expect.

Based on real life cases, the horrific nature of what these cops do is presented in a stark, no-nonsense manner. The film does not dwell on these people so much as the ways the cops deal with them. Any chance at laughter or light is grabbed at as a way to allay the darkness of what they see every day.

We see both the work-life and home life of these cops. Neither is happy. All the couples are either divorced or on the brink of it. The tentative romance between Maiwenn’s photographer and one of the cops feels doomed even as it starts and is the one misstep in this otherwise well crafted film.

The cast is large, and all perform their roles well. But with so many characters and lives to keep track of, I felt as if the film might have been better served as a TV series with one character’s life shown per week. The last third of the film felt rushed to me as the film makers scrambled to tie up each individual’s story before the credits rolled.

But Polisse had me crying one moment, laughing the next and completely open mouthed with shock at other times. Yes, it’s grim, and probably not comfortably viewing for anyone with children of their own, but there is a searing honesty about this it. Horrible as it may be, it is probably closer to the truth than we like to imagine.

Scary.

7.5/10