After a young woman is killed by being set on fire on the way home from a party the police are called in from the big city.
Echoing any number of other films where outsider detectives come in to a small town (say MEMORIES OF MURDER) NIGHT OF THE 12TH is very much near the top of the bunch. The film begins with a police retirement party. In a short hand method we get a sense of the cops and their sense of friendships. The film then shifts to the murder and then back to the cops, by which time we are hopelessly hooked.
This is just great filmmaking. It’s a film that we fall into because it feels like something we’ve seen before however at the same time director Dominick Moll uses that against us to up end our expectations. He’s not just telling the story of a murder investigation but deep diving into French society and examining the kind of thinking that would allow this sort of thing to happen. It’s a brilliant move that allows the film to have a real weight and as a result haunts you. And in my case I wanted to dive back in and go through it again.
This is a great film.
Recommended
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