Le Petit Lieutenant

Part of the fun of going to movies is falling in love with people, and then maintaining relationships with them over the years. I first fell for Nathalie Baye when she was the scriptgirl in Francois Truffaut’s sublime lovesong to cinema, Day for Night (1973), then was ravished by her beauty in The Return of Martin Guerre (1983), and revelled in the mature eroticism of An Affair of Love (1999.) So it was a trip from the get-go to see her as the mature captain of a squad of Parisian detectives, a supercop daughter of a supercop, back on the job after several years off to overcome alcoholism. Director Xavier Beauvois obviously loves her too, ending the film with a protracted close-up of her silent face, as she conveys emotion enough to win the Cesar for best actress. She has been compared to Helen Mirren in the BBC series Prime Suspect, which I will have to take a look at. Mahnola Dahrgis of the NYTimes also compared the film to The Wire, which I hadn’t while watching but it makes sense, for the honest depiction of the detailed drudgery of detective work, and the clear-eyed view of the lives of cops. This is a police procedural that resolutely refuses to go where you think it’s going, and retains the randomness and surprise of real life. The inevitable violence is not choreographed but presented as the messy struggle it truly is. The cast is effectively close-knit, but Nathalie Baye steals the show. (2006, dvd, n.) *7* (MC-71.)