My interest in Pialat's films was renewed by the November edition of the UK's ' Sight and Sound ' (an essential magazine for every filmgoer) and their article on his work. His films are hard to find here now, and those on Amazon are highly priced which puts the curious to a disadvantage. I would like to suggest that his films should be re-released as they are one of the great bodies of work in French cinema. He has an amazing eye for detail, and unlike Melville he does not hold a cold distance. He is right in there, exploring, engaged with the struggle of his characters. Life is messy, savage and beautiful and he is not afraid of getting his hands dirty in this exploration. I also think ' Police ' is not a film noir as some suggest, and that it is part of a perhaps unconscious trilogy on his behalf at exploring vocation ( in ' Sous le Soleil de Satan ' it is the priesthood, and in ' Van Gogh ' the extremes of creativity in the artist ) . ' Police ' shows in the incredible performance of Gerard Depardieu at his best how a tough man working for the police force, shown here in its grubbiest minute detail, finds his gentler self by loving another. The loved one played by the equally good Sophie Marceau because of the nature of herself and her own psychological problems cannot really reciprocate and that this is the crux of the film, and not the drug trafficking and violence which the film at first leads you to believe. The only overlaid music, of Gorecki 's 3rd Symphony at the end underlines the transformative emotional depths within Depardieu's character and showed in my opinion the spiritual depths of the film. It is one of the greatest uses of music in film and should be listened through to the last of the cast list and all the other details that come at the end of the film. If we do have souls it will weep into them, and this leads on again by my perspective to the priest and the artist that follow on in his next films. A superb film that resonates long after it is over.
Review of Police
