THIS REVIEW CONTAINS MINOR SPOILERS.
by Jarrod Jones. Scan any list of podcasts or streaming documentaries and prepare to be bombarded with true crime. The sheer amount of deep investigative dives into unsolved murders from journalists and armchair detectives alike is enough to make your eyes water — and that’s before you become acquainted with the poor subjects of these sordid entertainments. Even fiction isn’t completely free of the subgenre’s tentacle grip.
The Night of the 12th is fictionalized true crime that, to its benefit, is more interested in procedure than sensationalism. Dominik Moll’s probing, pertinent police drama (co-written by Gilles Marchand), which scored seven wins at last year’s César Awards (i.e. the French Oscars), concerns a murder case pulled from Pauline Guéna’s 18.3 – Une année à la PJ, a detailed account of the year the writer spent in Versailles observing its judicial police. Moll’s hypnotically paced film tamps down lurid details from the case with dull instances of futility, represented by failing relationships or a printer that never seems to work. Even the inciting death of an effervescent young woman named Clara (Lula Cotton Frapier) is shot from a distance.
The Night of the 12th centers on Yohan Vivès (steely-eyed Bastien Bouillon), a youthful but sullen police captain entering his new role just as Clara’s murder crosses his homicide desk. Yohan begins a close working relationship with Marceau (Bouli Lanners), a weary older detective with complex feelings toward the case due to a recent separation from his wife. She’s begun a relationship with another man and has become pregnant, which hardens Marceau’s view of other men. The only moment of violence in the film that doesn’t directly affect a woman features Marceau working out his frustrations on a particularly galling suspect. There’s futility in that, too.
What stands out about the way Moll and Marchand have chosen to adapt this case is how gender roles play a part in it. Marceau’s extralegal thrashing might have heroically wrung out a new clue or confession in a typical murder mystery. Here, it represents male frustration, possibly impotence. The perceived motive behind the case is summed up plain as day by one of Clara’s friends: a girl was killed by a man because she was a girl. Yohan muses later, slightly robotically, that there might be something amiss between men and women.
Yes. But why did Clara have to die? “It feels like punishment,” one detective in Yohan’s unit remarks. Another makes a thick assumption that because Clara kept an active sex life, her death was inevitable.
Moll sympathizes with Clara and the unfair assumptions people place on young female victims, so it comes as a relief that his film works the gender angle with a focused, sterile eye. One scene has Yohel’s detective unit bluntly reason out the method of the murder, and their explanations are presented as absurd. They say women like Joan of Arc or those condemned in the Salem witch trials are burned. For their crimes, men are often shot, hung, or crucified. So they declare Clara’s death irrational. Stabbings, stranglings, that’s more tangible. “You can follow a guy’s thinking,” Marceau says. “You imagine he blew a fuse.” It’s enough to make you want to smack your forehead, and his.
When murder mysteries provide closure, it feels as though sense can exist in our chaotic, often senseless world. Movies like The Night of the 12th are a stark reminder that answers don’t always come and that strict adherence to rules and protocol — to sense — will often impede the steady march toward truth. “We fight evil by filing reports,” Marceau says. “We respect procedure,” Yohen retorts. Maybe that’s why this young starched shirt is frequently seen pedaling his bike along the velodrome, another closed loop where he goes nowhere fast.
Moll also peppers his film with superstition. One character is compared to a black cat due to his knack for conjuring lousy weekend shifts. There are recurring shots of actual cats wandering the suburban wilds of Grenoble (where the film was shot), and we’re to infer a specter of bad luck looms over this vicious murder because the detectives working the case seem to. Resting the irresolution of Clara’s case on bad luck would be tempting. The Night of the 12th suggests that, as these men furrow their brows because their rules aren’t producing desired outcomes, there’s another problem that needs addressing.
7.5 out of 10
The Night of the 12th hits limited release on May 19.
Directed by Dominik Moll.
Screenplay by Dominik Moll and Gilles Marchand.
Cinematography by Patrick Ghiringhelli.
Starring Bastien Bouillon, Bouli Lanners, Anouk Grinberg, Théo Cholbi, Johann Dionnet, Thibault Evrard, Julien Frison, Paul Jeanson, Mouna Soualem, and Pauline Serieys.
Produced by Caroline Benjo, Barbara Letellier, Carole Scotta, and Simon Arnal.
Not Rated, but contains one moment of cruel violence and some salty cop language. In French.
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