Une nuit (2012)
Directed by Philippe Lefebvre

Film Review

There's a distinctly retro feel to Une nuit (a.k.a. Paris by Night), a film that is so evocative of the classic 1970s French policier that you half-expect Alain Delon, Jean-Paul Belmondo or Lino Ventura to turn up at any moment and remind us that there's more to being a cop than having a designer hairstyle and an unerring knack of surviving gore-splattered shoot outs.  Since its belated revival in the late 1990s, the policier has undergone the mother of all makeovers, becoming increasingly stylised, increasingly violent, and far more preoccupied with plot and making a visual splash than character depth.  Une nuit bucks this depressing trend and offers a more authentic kind of crime drama, one that has far more in common with the films of Jean-Pierre Melville and Jacques Deray than today's ever more formulaic shoot 'em up action flicks.  There are no set piece shoots outs and car chases in this film, just an absorbing study of a solitary cop going about his business one night in the seedier precincts of Paris.

Until he made this film (in his 69th year), Philippe Lefebvre had had a fairly undistinguished career as a director.  Prior to this, he directed only two films for the cinema - Le Juge (1984) and Le Transfuge (1985) - two routine thrillers that once seen are soon forgotten.  For most of his career, Lefebvre has worked for French television, his best known work being on the television series Antoine Rives, juge du terrorisme (1993) and L'Avocate (1996).  Coming 27 years after his last cinematic venture, Une nuit is Lefebvre's most inspired and ambitious work.  Excelling on both the directing and acting fronts, it is easily the most striking example of French film noir since Fred Cavaye's A bout portant (2010).  It may be a very traditional kind of film, but it has immense appeal and exposes the vacuity of most of today's thrillers, showing that it is possible to make a compelling crime drama without resorting to over-the-top mise-en-scène and extravagant set pieces.  This is a policier for grown-ups.

The most striking aspect of Une Nuit is its near-documentary hyper-realism, which comes partly from the way it is filmed (with a mobile HD camera which follows the main protagonist around Paris, a bit like a fly-on-the-walk documentary), but also from the meticulous attention to detail in its script.  The film owes much of its authentic feel to the writing team of Simon Michaël and Philippe Isard, who were both police officers in France before they turned their hand to screenwriting.  Isard is certainly well-placed to script the film, having spent 15 years doing the job that Roschdy Zem's character does in the film, which is to police criminal activity on the less salubrious streets of Paris after dark.  Prior to this film, Isard worked with Olivier Marchal (another ex-cop, turned filmmaker) on the popular French crime series Flics (2008).  Simon Michaël began his screenwriting career back in the mid-1980s when Claude Zidi hired him to co-script the Ripoux films; since, he has worked on several of Zidi's films, and also a number of films with Pierre Jolivet, including Ma petite entreprise (1999).

Roschdy Zem and Sara Forestier make an effective contrast as the two central characters in the drama, the seemingly ill-matched police duo Weiss and Deray - the former a jaded, somewhat ambiguous lone lawman who has grown to accept the limitations of his role; the latter a rookie cop who is full of ideals and has yet to become accustomed to the uglier side of Parisian life.  Weiss is a contradictory character of the kind that thrived in the French polars of the 1970s and 80s, an inherently noble character who has become tainted by the environment in which he works.  He takes pay-offs, is on good terms with the mobsters, but he is committed to upholding the rule of law as far as he can - not an easy task as his superiors are apt to be as corrupt and devious as the hoodlums and pimps he has to deal with on the streets.  Zem's portrayal appears to have been modelled partly on Clint Eastwood's maverick lawman Harry Callahan and partly on Alain Delon's central character in Melville's Un flic (1972) - there is an uncompromising toughness fused with a cool sense of detachment.  There is also a touch of the old Gabin patriarch - Weiss is not a man who is easily intimidated, and he knows how to fight his corner and win.  Unfortunately, as was prevalent in the neo-polars of the late 1970s (for example Le Juge Fayard dit Le Shériff), our hero is up against threats from many directions and it is not immediately apparent who the greatest opponent is.

The film is as much about the Parisian demi-monde as it is about the lawman who is tasked with overseeing it.  It shows a side of the French capital that few of us ever get to see, a festering dung heap inhabited by dodgy nightclub owners, drugs pushers, prostitutes, strippers and transvestites, all living precariously on the edge of what is legally permissible.  It is this diseased, maggot-ridden underbelly of French society that Weiss must patrol nightly, and no wonder the stench of corruption has transferred itself to him, causing his colleagues to believe he has gone rotten himself.  It is the most unflattering and evocative depiction of Paris since Melville's Bob le Flambeur (1955), but, as in that film, there is something intrinsically alluring in the lurid hedonistic dreamscape that cinematographer Jérôme Alméras presents us with.

If Une nuit has a fault it is that it tries to cram far too many unlikely incidents into too short a space of time (remember that the entire action of the film is supposed to take place over one night).  If what the film presents is typical of what your average French cop has to face in one day's work, you'd be surprised if there were any police officers left in France - most of them would have taken early retirement by now and turned their hand to something else (like writing, directing or acting in films, for instance).  A few heart-stopping dramatic incidents would not have harmed the film's credibility too much, but a whole slew of them in quick succession does tend to undermine its realism somewhat.  Perhaps this is being picky, since in every other respect Une nuit is an extremely impressive piece of cinema, and a very welcome departure from today's more comicbook style of policier.  Late in his career, Philippe Lefebvre proves himself to be a worthy disciple of the great Jean-Pierre Melville and delivers what is assuredly the most compelling and distinctive French crime film of 2012.

Film Synopsis

Simon Weiss's life as a dedicated cop in Paris's vice squad is mostly routine.  Most nights are uneventful, more likely to arouse boredom than excitement.  And if there is trouble Simon knows what to expect and how to deal with it.  But this night will be different.  This is the night when Simon's mental and physical resources will be tested to the absolute limit.  Now he is fighting on two fronts, caught between his police superiors and the city's criminal lowlife.  It is hard to know whom he can trust as this most dependable of cops embarks on his most gruelling night ever.  He isn't even sure if he is going to survive the nightmare that he now finds himself caught up in...