Here's a harrowing drama from director, Alice Diop, that's based on her own experience at the trial of a Senegalese-French woman who murdered her own 15 month-old daughter in 2013. It's nominally a courtroom drama, but it's like none I've seen before. In fact, the courtroom scenes are a framing device for our protagonist (Diop's surrogate), Rama, played with a calm intensity by artist Kayije Kagame, and her struggles with her own family situation. She's often seen in flashback as a kid dealing with her mother's apparent breakdown. I say apparent because this is one of the film's strengths - Diop doesn't spell things out for her audience. We, adults for the most part, are encouraged to draw our own summations on what's going on and why Rama is so encased in her own thoughts. Her mystery is mirrored by the more morally repugnant question of why the woman on trial, Laurence (Guslagie Malanda) would choose to commit infanticide.
Both the leads are fantastic, and there's one key scene where they hold eye contact for a moment before something simple happens that pivots Rama's whole outlook on the case specifically, and her life in general. That bit's a real kicker. In fact, I have to admit a slight boredom up until that point, especially in the lack of action in the court dialogue scenes. I now realise that I was setting myself up for a French John Grisham-style potboiler (as fun as those can be), instead of an essay on the Medea myth and a wider look at race, gender, culture and even post-colonialism in today's France. More fool me.
There's much to like about the film, notably the way Diop extends the possibility that nothing is black and white, even in such heinous cases as this. African witchcraft is mentioned as one possible reason for the murder - Laurence's mother, Odile (Salimata Kamate) even seems to assert this under oath - and there's a final speech from her female lawyer that pleads for understanding of Laurence's mental illness. Pretty sobering stuff. It's also noteworthy that the sanctimonious, yet entirely reasonable, white, male prosecutor isn't afforded any final words in the wrap up - there's not even a traditional judgement handed down, not one that we see, at any rate.
Saint Omer won't be for everyone and it flirts with visual inertia, but there's enough meat on the bones to find meaning within. Hopefully, Diop will continue to switch between documentaries and narrative features - she's got a pretty commanding voice.
Saint Omer is showing at Luna and Palace cinemas.
See also:
Rama walks through what looks like Les Olympiades at one point, bringing to mind Jacques Audiard's stunning Paris, 13th District (2021). And speaking of France's problems dealing with its colonial past, there's no better film to watch than Michael Haneke's Cache (2005).
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