
On the surface, Dominik Moll’s “The Night of the 12th” seems to be a cleverly choreographed police thriller. A terrible murder has been committed, the cops are lost, and there are a host of possible suspects. It draws some inspiration from actual cases, including those found in Pauline Guena’s 18.3: A Year With the Crime Squad. “The Night of the 12th” is rather multifaceted and profound. The film’s power stems from its unvarnished surface and its churning, unsaid core. The shifts it undertakes are, to put it mildly, inconspicuous. But curiously enough, it makes no pronouncements like “This is The point.”
When noxious drug violence enters the picturesque town of Grenoble, Yohan Vivès (Bastien Bouillon) unit chief of the local police, is relatively new on the job. He is inundated with work, but this is still better than receiving an oil barrel as a gift. A young, cheerful woman identified as Clara (Lula Cotton-Frapier) is coming back from a party. While sauntering down the vacant and dark streets with little to no lighting, she captures a comical video to send to her peers. A figure starts to materialize from the dark, says her name, throws a liquid substance on her and then sets her ablaze. The next day Yohan has to deal with the aftermath when they find her torso in an ordinary field.
Instead, negative determinants seem more plausible. Clara’s social life thrived and so did the suspects. Some psychologists say she was drawn to bad boys. A few rappers fantasized about defeating her and one burst out in laughter when discussing her demise. Others are more concerned from a moral viewpoint, like those with violent tendencies. Batman suspects these individuals, yet they can mislead detectives. The net narrows with every additional detail they uncover from Clara’s life.
The film “Night of the 12th” focuses on tales of murdered cases yet to be solved and still capturing memories of the detectives who worked on them. Just like it has been shown in the movie, the main character whose identity is unknown actually manages to free himself from the burden of all the kills he has committed. This genre of films was spearheaded by Bong Joon-ho’s “Memories of Murder” and speared with David Fincher’s “Zodiac.” These films have great interest in the idea of a singular obsession of a specific person, which then essentially leads them to devote their lives into trying to portray the truth behind such things. There’s no competition when it comes to the expression of the film–‘Memories of Murder.’ This film did not escalate as high as the “Zodiac”: in fact, its mood is quite the opposite, more chilly while the aura gives off a bleak feeling.
It is impossible to overlook that a young woman has been slaughtered and the police force is entirely male. At first glance, it seems implausible. All these men are professional workers, and they do their jobs and do them exceptionally well. But at one level, there is a disconnect. The men decimate her for her indiscreet demeanor. Even if they don’t explicitly label her a “slut,” the fact remains. These discussions, which Yohan attempts to correct, are far beyond what he has the vocabulary to describe. Perhaps he, too, at some point, judges Clara; hoping, God knows, she is a perfect victim. But then, it is the heartbroken, best friend of Clara, Stéphanie (Pauline Serieys), who has the responsibility to explain to Yohan the imbalance at work, or better yet, the imbalance which he has no idea is at work.
When in “The Night of the 12th”, a female judge, after three years, reopened the case and asked Yohan for advice, he said, chargingly, “Something is not worth between men and women.” What accompanies his confusion is baffled interest. Why is something so self-evident painfully glaring. There exists apprehension and uncertainty where it can be applied.
The screenplay was superb (the film received six Césars at the beginning of this year, including Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Director, and Best Film). Still, the dialogue replayed over the scenes from the film, and ‘as in the superb scene between Stéphanie and Yohan, the dialogue is perfectly crafted.
“The Night of the 12th” offers a very strong critique of system-related issues when a film is expected to focus on issues pertaining to specific systems or people’s ways of thinking. The case reveals cracks in the lives of the men working to solve it. The characters are dealing with everything under the sun, and if you don’t have more chaos then you don’t have the deeper understanding of the more serious issues. In 1984, George Orwell came up with a well-founded and developed concept, “Every year fewer and fewer words, and the range of consciousness always a little smaller.” Yohan, for example, lives a very disciplined ascetic lifestyle with no romantic or social attachment. He rides his bike around a track every night. Even with how badly he pedals, he never really goes anywhere. It is slightly unbelievable but intense enough to pull you into the character’s world. The metaphor is so eloquently put, it sheds light on the men solving Clara’s case. There is no denying the fact that something is wrong. They don’t look all too good. Of course, the men invest most of their energy into solving the case, and yes, their involvement is entangled with the desperate scenario we find them in.
The fact that Yohan takes so long to articulate these words in a conversation and chooses to speak them to a woman he has just met and not his male counterparts is not part of the concern. It is the concern.
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