museumofdave This film is a challenging experience, and if you are used to the rhythms of television, to being stimulated by action and spectacle or you spend a good deal of time with video games, this film will drive you crazy; it's slow, sometimes maddeningly tedious, and the main character is far from heroic, in the usual sense.This is a film about people trapped by their own situation, by their experiences, by their environment, by their weaknesses--these are the folks you often see on the streets and wonder what their lives might be like; Director Dumont is not interested in entertaining you, but, I think, wants you to think about your own values, about how you react to other people.Insensitive viewers who are after the usual action popcorn movie, or with little empathetic response will probably dislike this film, as it is about the inner self, or the lack of it; moviegoers who want a challenge, a film unlike any other, might find this journey fascinating--but it does demand that you put aside your previous cinematic expectations.

jgw321 "A police detective who has forgotten how to feel emotions, because of the death of his own family" That part of the summary doesn't ring true. He is clearly upset by the death, and the manner of it, in the early scenes. It seems the director was insensitive to his actors. Dispair, emptiness, loss were all well portrayed by the actors in the early scenes, but he just seemed to want more of the same, as though he hadn't got it yet. The effect was to drag the whole film out to the point of boredom. Add that to the fact that none of the characters were likable, and it is a wonder if any of the audience would still be there by the end of the film. The film did capture the distracted empty feeling that loss through death can bring, but that is all it managed to do, over and over again, for two and a half hours. The director should watch City Island and follow the advice given by Alan Arkin, "No Pauses!".We recognised Wimmeraux, that was a high point.

Robert J. Maxwell A trio sit at a restaurant table and stare wordlessly into space. Later, they lean on a rail and stare across the Channel at England. A man works a hoe repetitively in his garden, only his head and upper torso visible on the screen. A man and a woman watch another man peeing against a stone wall. Each of these silent shots lasts for roughly one full minute. Absolutely no information is imparted that could not be given to us in about one quarter of the time. The editor must have been half asleep. I know I was.The movie open with a startling shot of the raw vagina of an obviously dead body. One's gorge rises. But then the policeman (Schotte) exchanges a few words with a neighboring couple and begins to tag along after them and the case is forgotten for the next half hour while Schotte and his friends trade unfunny insults with each other and with strangers. Eventually the thread of the case is picked up again but proceeds slowly, almost aimlessly, following the stylistic pattern already established.Sometimes in movies like this, the location shooting provides a kind of atmosphere that compensates for the dullness of the story, but not here. The houses of the French village are attached to one another in long rows. The house fronts abut the pavement directly, with no steps. The fronts show virtually no decoration and are pretty much indistinguishable. The flat farmlands are featureless. What might have been one of the more interesting episodes -- a visit to a stone fort on the coast -- bores the trio until they begin behaving like snots and are asked to leave.The acting is minimal. Nobody seems particularly anxious to say anything. No jokes are made. Nothing amusing happens. The policeman has a face almost as interesting as Randy Quaid's. The babe, a tall hefty blonde, looks like the kind of shot putter on steroids that the East Germans used to field at the Olympic Games.I sat through more than an hour of it before giving it up. Maybe I'll take a crack at it some other time. Unless I've missed something or unless it turns into some deranged Monty Python routine towards the end, I don't think you'll get much out of renting it.

przgzr This film is not a crime movie. It starts with a crime, but tells a story that only touches the crime, the murder is just our entrance in the movie. That reminds me on some other French movies: Delon and Signoret were great in "Granges brulées" and also was Gabin in "Affaire Dominici". In former of these you finally don't even care who is the murderer (a person that never appeared in the movie), because the relations between characters are developing rapidly and the crime is only a catalyst. L' Humanite is a mood movie. The trouble is, it is just a mood movie, and lasts far too long not to bore us and (the worst it can happen to such a movie) leads to the feeling of indifference, we become emotionally cold and don't feel that mood any more, just watch the counter - how much more... Mood can be brought without so long and boring scenes, "Blue velvet" shows how quickly a mood can be presented and changed into another. Sex/nudity scenes were also boring. There is more painless ways to get gynaecological pictures than watching this movie. I don't mind seeing the scenes, I don't mind the actors are not attractive; on the contrary, if they were it would harm the mood. (They surely wouldn't fit in Hamilton's movies.) But I do mind when they have no meaning and last so long. There are many slow movies, but I remember only one (Tarkovsky's Solaris - but a masterpiece which can't be compared with L'humanite in anything except far too long scenes) that made me think the same: the hell, movies cost so much, so why couldn't they afford a scissors?!