AndreaBeaumont This movie is not so much about children stories, nor about doing this specific police work. If it were about any of that, it would take more time and scenes to portray personalities of children abusers, the process of investigating, analyzing, preparing operations or doing treatment with victims.It does not offer us any of that depth. It offers a couple of flashing scenes, brief stories that are just being used as everyday background and (police work) methodology - to take effect on small group of people that are of (!)seemingly random personalities.In the movie you are being tossed right in the middle, with no character introduction. With time you will be provided with very subtle hints to reconstruct pieces (for example in some actions and some situations characters don't act according to their natural response) and that's the breaking point.The way I saw it, personal histories and stories of police officers and of children they treat are connected. Some character insight hints are given throughout the movie, but almost every scene of child molestation story basically has - two - main protagonists to look at.> Nora is of course connected to non-displayed daughter of a traditional Muslim father. Her reaction is so emotional it feels she shouts things she kept in for a long time> Fred, who is constantly angered and on the outburst is connected with a homeless boy whose mother had to give him up. The boy is just so full of anger and sad and terrified; and only Fred was able to truly calm him down; and only then Fred is really showing his vulnerability.> Nadine is connected to the girl who gave an extra push to get back her phone (it was a smart phone!) - in the whole scene she's in the background, laughing but a bit embarrassed and out of the center spot, laying low, not feeling or sharing the absurdity of the story (BTW, I just love the acting of the girl in that scene. You see in her eyes how she is slowly realizing, and how she is ashamed but also angry and deeply hurt by their laughter)> And Iris - the last story, the closure. It has been winking at us for the entire time - her cold nature, detached; her disliking and even hatred of men; her bulimia and body-acceptance problems; identifying herself with a creature dead, gone, unwanted, sick, rotten. That happened when she was the same age as is Solal, I would guess. The contrast of her and Solal could be seen in two ways - are they opposites of character (one succumbs, the other overcomes), or is her ending also his future ending, no matter what he may accomplish in life? (she did have a very successful career after all) Can he escape his "destiny"? This is yours to conclude.To conclude, all of this is not to represent or demonstrate police work or traumatic stories of real life. It's about past and present, about surviving, understanding, revealing the hidden. Outside of their jobs, would you make friends, hang out with these people? Or would you find Fred closed up and aggressive; Iris bitter cynic and passive aggressive; Nora a bitchy go-getter big-mouth. Outside in the real world these people are non-functioning; but when on their ground, which we all wouldn't even go near, they are heroes and experts.To end, I would say the movie is very very emotional and even if I'm wrong with all this and over the top, I see it that way and like it that way.

Sindre Kaspersen French screenwriter, actress and director Maïwenn's third feature film which she co-wrote with French screenwriter, actress and director Emmanuelle Bercot, is inspired by the directors research and observations during the time she spent with the child protection unit in France. It premiered In competition at the 64th Cannes International Film Festival in 2011, was screened in the Competition section at the 22nd Stockholm International Film Festival in 2011, was shot on locations in France and is a French production which was produced by producer Alain Attal. It tells the story about Iris, Nadine, Chrystelle, Sue-Ellen, Nora, Fred, Mathieu, Gabriel, Bamako and Balloo who are working at the child department within the law enforcement in the capital city of France, and who one day is introduced by their superintendent named Beauchard to a photographer named Mélissa Zaïa whom has been assigned to make a photo-book for the police department. Distinctly and subtly directed by French filmmaker Maïwenn, this finely paced and somewhat fictional tale which is narrated from multiple viewpoints, draws a commendably authentic and increasingly heartrending portrayal of the interdependence, collaboration, conflicts and dedication within a police unit. While notable for its naturalistic and atmospheric milieu depictions, reverent cinematography by cinematographer Pierre Aïm, film editing by film editors Yann Dedet and Laure Gardette and use of sound, colors and light, this dialog-driven and interchangeably character-driven story about the everyday life, courageousness and priceless necessity of men and women who on a regular basis are confronted with amongst others fathers and mothers who have maltreated their children, the fast transition between cases to avoid personal involvement and how this affects their mentality, their views on people and their private lives, depicts multiple dense and interrelated studies of character and contains a great and timely score by English composer Stephen Warbeck. This situational, eloquently humorous and contrastingly though harmonically romantic drama which is set in Paris, France in the 21st century and where men and women who either are parents themselves or are about to become parents are listening to numerous children and youths who have been encouraged to criminality and subjected to sexual crimes, and parents who either believes that child abuse is an appropriate way of child fostering or sneeringly claims that having connections with high class citizens pardons them from molesting their wives and children, is impelled and reinforced by its cogent narrative structure, substantial character development, rhythmic continuity, distinct realism, merging of the children and adults' viewpoints, coherent interplay and the involving and heartfelt acting performances by French actresses Karin Viard, Marina Fïos, Emmanuelle Bercot, Naidra Ayadi, Karole Rocher and French musician and actor Joeystarr. An engagingly conversational, humanely sociological and reflectively cinematographic narrative feature.

ffuuut Polisse was my favourite film at the recent Sydney Film Festival. A french film from writer, director, star Maiween, it tells the story of the Child Protection Unit in Paris. It was absolutely riveting from start to finish.An ensemble piece that moves at a cracking pace, it could be forgiven for not establishing character, but it actually manages to do that and do it very well. We are introduced to this group of close knit colleagues as they go about their day trying to balance the horrors they have to deal with (rapists, kidnappers, abusers, paedophiles) with their personal lives.Maiween spent quite some time with a real CPU and told us in the Q&A that all the cases she featured are just like ones she witnessed and with that experience she brought an almost documentary feel at the same time as adding creative drama and plot to moments of the story as they rush through case after case. The performances are all excellent and the editing is sublime (it won a French Oscar for this).It's shocking, emotional, intense and surprisingly very funny.Highly recommended if you like hard-hitting films that deal with serious subjects in a very human and darkly humorous way.

writers_reign At any given time there are upwards of a dozen French actresses - spanning several decades - working in cinema, any one of whose name on a marquee is sufficient to draw me to the box-office irrespective of whether the given actress is working with unknowns or with a cast of her peers of both sexes. In the second decade of the 21st century the pickings are rich; Danielle Darrieux, who made her name in the thirties is still with us and worked as recently as 2010, Micheline Presle, who rose to prominence in the forties is always prepared to don the old slap any time her daughter, Toni Marshall directs a new film, Jeanne Moreau, first seen in the early fifties remains fully active and from the sixties we have Catherine Deneuve, arguably the doyenne of present day French cinema. After Deneuve the deluge, Isabelle Huppert, Nathalie Baye, Fanny Ardant, Isabel Carre, Carole Bouquet, Sandrine Bonnaire, Mathilde Seigneur, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Cecile de France, Nicole Garcia, Agnes Jouai, Valerie Lemercier, the list goes on. It was an actress who drew me to Polisse; when I turned up at the cinema all I knew about Polisse was that it featured Karin Viard, what I didn't know was that it also featured Marina Fois and Sandrine Kimberlain and above all this I didn't know what it took me five minutes, tops, to realize, that it was a GREAT film with an equally great ensemble cast that includes writer-director Maiwenn. It has the authenticity of a documentary and one reviewer here has compared it to Le Petit Lieutenant, a reasonable comparison although I tend to think of it in the same breath as L.627. No matter, Polisse stands alone as a record of the Child Protection Unit in Paris and Maiwenn gives us the whole thing from soup to nuts, from the child victims to the adult abusers to the tight-knit unit seeing human sorrow and human evil day after day, week after week and often unable to remain aloof. It's actually quite a long film but it seems like only minutes such is the power of the ensemble. Ten stars going away.