37/46
Tale
Two girls disappear
Police recruit Paul Chartier joins a secret unit investigating a sex offender. After the operation failed, Chartier independently pursues the criminals, disillusioned with legal restrictions. It is mentioned in “Close-up: Why do we need the Venice Film Festival?” (2024). In “Maldoror” director Fabrice du Welz touches on one of the darkest pages of recent Belgian history.
This failure led to a thorough reorganization of law enforcement agencies
The abduction and death of several teenage girls by Marc Dutroux unleashed national trauma in 1996. The fact that the local police and criminal investigators practically did not cooperate during the investigation may have cost the girls their lives. In the film, the story is told from the point of view of policeman Paul Charlier, who searched the basement where the girls were hiding. He heard them whispering, but couldn’t find them because of the limited search warrant.
Charlie knows that he is right, but his superiors have other priorities
These events happened in reality, but Du Welts mixes facts and fiction in his film. He portrays the policeman as a typical street cop who prefers an intuitive sense of rules and procedures. Ultimately, his persistence and disrespect for the authorities led to his downfall, the collapse of his marriage, but also to his final moral victory. This film is both an exciting police thriller and a character study of Charlier.
Visually, watching the film is a pleasure
His strong will is the result of upbringing: his parents were far from law-abiding. He is determined to be “on the right side”, but the main thing for him is to track down criminals. If rules and regulations interfere, he ignores them. The desolate industrial wasteland of Charleroi, where the abductions took place, is used to the maximum.
But some events are obviously fictional
In addition, the hopelessness of the city, where illegal activities seem to flourish, reinforces the dark atmosphere. The film documents an important part of Belgian history, and for those who followed the events of that time, it is an interesting interpretation. In order to make an exciting police thriller with political elements, the film rejected historical credibility.
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