Reims polar: life in black

At the Reims Polar festival, the films present a world – inevitably ruthless – where ultra-liberalism and poverty mutilate and kill as savagely as serial killers.

The thriller as revealing the state of the world, misery and chaos? For its third edition, the Reims Polar festival is presenting a series of social, committed films on the lumpenproletariat trying to survive, on ultra-liberalism which kills, Italian, Brazilian, Chinese or Kazakh films, films which sometimes resemble the social works of the Dardenne brothers more than the hardcore thrillers of Olivier Marchal.

The festival opened with Last night in Milan (released on June 7), in tribute to the brilliant Pierfrancesco Favino (The traitor, Nostalgia). It is regarding a cop, during his last night of service following 35 years of good and loyal service, who finds himself plunged into an infernal gear where it is a question of Chinese mafia, precious stones and corrupt cops. Against the backdrop, a real questioning of the job of cop in Italy, underpaid, which makes some embark on risky adventures and join the dark side of the Force for a few euros more…

With the great Korean film About Kim Soheedirector July Jung (A Girl at my Door) practices the autopsy of a society that literally kills its youth at work, of a murderous liberalism. It is inspired by a true story and describes the long descent into hell of a young student on an internship in a telephone call center of a telecom box. She discovers a merciless universe where she is confronted with bewildering working conditions, extended hours, with the bonus of salary deductions for unachieved goals. Crushed, humiliated, she will of course lose her footing and in a second part, a female cop, embodied by the brilliant Donna Bae (Cloud Atlas, Sense8), will investigate. masterful work, About Kim Sohee leaves an indelible mark on the viewer. And, good news, the film was released in theaters on April 7…

THE DAMNED OF THE EARTH, INSURANCE FRAUD AND SERIAL-KILLER

In Brazilian film Property, we witness a revolt of agricultural workers, the damned of the earth, while the director Daniel Bandeira tries to cobble together a suspense and a pseudo-narrative device, with a woman prisoner in a car with armored windows. In The Bone Breakers, we follow the abuses of a band of crooks who organize insurance fraud by breaking the limbs of consenting victims. Inspired by a story that made headlines in Palermo, the film, shot by a broken arm, sinks very quickly and loses its spectators, despite its infernal pitch.

Halfway through the festival, the big shock is a Hong Kong film, Limboby Soi Cheang (Dog bite Dog), which takes place in a megalopolis transformed into a giant dump, with a homeless serial-killer who cuts up the hands of his victims, along with various rusty objects. Hot on his trail are a new police recruit, a veteran cop and a resilient young woman. A pure exercise in black and white staging, Limbo is a concentrate of molten metal, an apocalyptic, unbearable work, which often evokes Se7en et I met the devil, where the three main characters struggle to survive a few more minutes, while the poor spectator tries to catch his breath, nailed to his chair by a succession of sequences that are both anxiety-provoking and unbearable. Very high art for a film that has no French release yet.

By Marc Godin