Vashirdfel Simply A Masterpiece

Listonixio Fresh and Exciting

GazerRise Fantastic!

Abbigail Bush what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

John Williams The film starts out as an interesting pseudo-documentary about the French Child Protection Services, and it seems sort of like The Office. Unfortunately the film then drags on for another 90 minutes as it jumps from vignette to vignette (abused child, abandoned child, etc) while you get to see a massively dysfunctional arm of the police department yell and function incoherently. If I was their boss, I would've fired about half of the people in that office long before movie ended.The drama is hugely overblown in the film, but unfortunately it is not funny in any scene, even when the director tries to make it so, as when the -entire department- starts making fun of a girl who was sexually abused after her cell phone was stolen. Other ridiculous scenes (although there are so many): • Fred taking off the glasses of the (unnamed?) weirdo photographer, then letting her hair down? It's like out of some 1980s teen comedy, but done here to supremely awkward effects.• The CPS people abusing a girl who just gave a stillborn (or possibly aborted) baby a few months after being raped.• So, so, so many unexplained character interactions, e.g. between the weirdo photographer and her baby daddy. Why is he taking care of their children? Why does he seem like a child molester himself, but then this plot is never, ever developed at all? Why is she hiding from his gaze when she leaves her apartment, across the street? None of this is even remotely explained. The photographer's romance with the guy on the squad is incredibly overdone and unnecessary.• Why did they think it was a good idea to bring along someone with horrible anxiety issues to an undercover gem smuggling operation? No one was like "this girl who freaks out by saying 'hello' should probably not be playing a central role in the operation"?There are many more. I don't seem to be nitpicky, I can enjoy movies with some plot holes, but this film is an entire series of partially explained character interactions. It's the film equivalent of Lost. Stop introducing character development if you're not going anywhere with it, good lord. I get that nothing is really 'resolved' when you're working with Child Protection Services, but even that point is not gotten across very well.I've seen worse films, but would definitely not recommend this to anyone. I did not previously know that Luc Besson was a pedophile and molested this film's director when she was a girl, but it's also unfortunate that she didn't make a better story about child abuse, given her own history. C'est la vie.

Franco-23 I had no idea that this film had many nominations at last year's César awards (the french Oscars). I started to see it on cable and immediately got interested in the subject and the way they handle it. It's straight forward but subtle at the same time. It has a good moving pace, there's always something going on. The array of characters is very rich and even though there's no time to get more deeply into their private worlds, you get to understand that they are mere human beings doing their best at their job, which is trying to protect all "minors" from abusive situations. I specially liked the realism of the characters, you end up caring for most of them and wishing them well in their actions.

emilie-556-954984 Polisse is a difficult film to define. Based on real-life cases dealt with by the Child Protection Unit covering the 19th arrondissement (borough or quarter) of Paris, it could possibly be called a docudrama, although it does not cover events of historical significance.Maïwenn, who wrote, directed and featured in the film as a photojournalist shadowing the unit, spent time herself with such a unit for research. All the cases featured in the film are supposed to have taken place while she was there or were recounted to her at that time. It is this that gives the film its lifelike, gritty quality. Indeed, the first scene plunges straight into an interview with a little girl who claims her father is molesting her, and is swiftly followed by other similar interviews with suspected paedophiles, victims and accusers. Despite the obviously very serious subject of the film, humorous moments pepper the script, which successfully highlights the tragicomic ludicrousness of some of the situations they encounter. Alongside the cases of child molesting and underage rape that the team deals with on a day- to-day basis, the film delves into the complex personalities of the characters, who are at times tender and patient, and at others frustrated, angry and even violent. We are privy to the emotional strain the job has on these police officers and the effects on their personal lives, their marriages and relationships with their children. Special bonds also develop between them, and their intimacy and affinity is so well portrayed that it is easy to forget that this is in fact a film and not simply a documentary.Though Polisse, like real life, does not really follow a plot line, and we never find out if the criminals are actually brought to justice, one does not become bored or frustrated or ever wonder where the film is going. In fact, just like the TV series The Wire to which it has been compared, it is the lack of obvious direction of the film that ultimately makes it all the more powerful and effective.

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.