An enjoyable slice of French cinema. Unlike Hollywood movies - which usually force the audience into overdrive - this forces the audience to slow down and look at some of life's tiniest and most mundane features in great detail. The acting is superlative, as is the realism throughout. Goodness knows what the censors will make of it outside of France (I saw it uncut at the Edinburgh Film Festival). The basic story is a police hunt in a small town in France. But there's no gloss - both the police detectives and the other characters are full of human frailty down to the last wart and boil. they are all quite ordinary characters till you dig beneath the surface - and when you do dig their quirks seem somehow believable and natural.

What's this about quiet small towns that so capture the curiosity and imagination of film-makers. Here we have another study by the director of the Life of Jesus (which incidentally is about a small town too)which shows, from the surface, how a Police Superintendant copes with the brutal rape and murder of a young girl. With this as a background, the film proceeds to show the aimlessness in the protanganist's life and his relationships with the people around him.

While the pace of the film is slow, you do get a feeling that such an approach is necessary. As such, you get many long shots. You also get shots that are very upfront and will no doubt make many in the audience feel uneasy.

There will be many different comments about the show. I heard some French guys coming out of the cinema and lauding it as "Pure Cinema" while others have complained that it was pretentious. For me, I thought it was boring.

I can't quite imagine what the Cannes jury saw in this film - unless it was some cruel joke they came up with to torture film goers - if it was it worked..

I should've left - I deeply regret that I did not, but I thought (wrongly it turns out) that SOMETHING might happen to explain why this film would be well thought of.. In fact it just became more and more frustrating - especially at the end with the levitating, the kiss and Phaeron's handcuffs - why why why?!

The film went back and forth between utter torturous boredom (don't get me wrong - I don't mind a slowly developing story but there wasn't even that!) and shocking close ups of monotonous sex scenes.. And it certainly wasn't erotic - if anything quite the opposite..

All I can really say is if you value your time at all avoid this film - it will most likely waste your time and energy and you will end up as aggravated as I did.