Review of ‘Saint Omer. The people against Laurence Coly’, from isolation to madness

Judicial cinema has given away great plots that base their tension on elucidating the innocence or not of a defendant. In this disconcerting film that ceases to be important, because we know from the beginning that the protagonist is the author of the murder of her own baby, an argument that starts from a real case in France.

With this premise, Alice Diop, until now a documentary creator, breaks the rules of the genre and of the cinematographic language itself. Because what we see during a large part of the footage is the narration of a story with very long static shots by a hieratic woman. There are no cuts or reverse shots to lighten the drama. And what we hear is the tragedy of an immigrant woman (an issue present in all of the author’s cinematography) and of how isolation and despair can lead to places very close to madness. He slaps our prejudices about education and manners, because the defendant is a cultured woman, capable of twisting language to make us doubt whether she is a psychopath, a manipulator, or just another victim of cruelty and contempt.

To be shaken by an uncomfortable story (in substance and form)

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DATA SHEET

Address: Alice Diop Distribution: Kayije Kagame, Guslagie Malanda, Valérie Dréville, Aurélia Petit Country: France Year: 2022 Release date: 3–3-2023 Gender: Drama Script: Alice Diop, Marie N.Diaye, Amrita David Duration: 122 min.

Synopsis: Court of Saint Omer. The young novelist Rama attends the trial of Laurence Coly, a young woman accused of killing her 15-month-old daughter by abandoning her at high tide on a beach in northern France. But as the trial progresses, the words of the defendant and the testimonies of witnesses will shake Rama’s convictions and cast doubt on the trial itself.