Reel Review: The Night of the 12th (2022)

“The Night of the 12th” is a riveting French crime procedural that effectively and uncomfortably explores the dark side of human nature.

French crime cinema has a rich history, ranging from Jules Dassin’s 1955 slick masterpiece Rififi to the bone-crunching violence of Jan Kounen’s 1997 Dobermann to Jean-Pierre Melville’s neo-noir classic Le Samurai starring the wonderful Alain Delon. All these films have one very particular thing in common, style — a sense of suave Parisian cool that exudes in every frame.

However, The Night of the 12th (2022) is a very different crime thriller.

Winner of six awards at the 48th César Awards, including Best Film and Best Director, this work of fiction the film was inspired by Pauline Guéna’s 2020 book, 18.3 — Une Année à la PJ (18.3: A year at the PJ) about Guéna’s time spent living with the criminal brigades of the judicial police of Versailles.

At its heart, The Night of the 12th is an exploration of the monotony of bureaucracy and the frustration that it breeds. It also addresses the toxicity of misogyny.

Bleakly, the film opens with the lines, “Each year, the French Police open more than 800 murder investigations. Nearly 20% remain unsolved.”

The Night of the 12th follows a team of French investigators as they aim to solve the brutal murder of a young woman named Clara. The team is led by the recently promoted Le capitaine Yohan Vivès, played with a tortured sense of stoicism by Bastien Bouillon.

Director Dominik Moll crafts an unflinching and, at times, uncomfortable police procedural.

There are no gun fights, car chases, or fist fights in darkened ally ways. No, what we get here are police officers locked in battle with mounting paperwork, faulty photocopiers, and their own implicit bias.

It is indeed these biases that really gripped me and provided the film with a fascinating undercurrent. At times, some of the opinions expressed by the police officers are not too far from that of the suspects they interrogate.

Yohan is very much the odd man out on the team — an individual who struggles with the views of his colleagues. We see Marceau, the most senior of the team, resorting to slapping a suspect around. He is a man whose personal life is crumbling around him, which leads him to question why he became a police officer to begin with.

Running throughout the film is the theme of misogyny.

Time and time again, Yohan questions both suspects and friends of the victim about her sex life, reducing her best friend to tears for accidentally omitting her knowledge of one of Clara’s past relationships. This is an interesting dichotomy, given the conflict that he gets into with his fellow officers.

In one very telling scene, a former boyfriend of Clara presents himself to the police because he has written a hip-hop track about how he intends to set her alight because she has left him for another man.

One by one, we meet Clara’s ex-boyfriends, each becoming more and more deplorable.

The Night of the 12th is utterly unapologetic in its portrayal of very unlikeable characters.

This is both the film’s strength and weakness, in that we don’t have anybody to route for.

However, Moll has no interest in giving us a likable protagonist. Yohan is cold and distant, almost machine-like. He spends his spare time cycling around and around the local velodrome to get away from his frustrations. But just like the doomed Sisyphus of Greek mythology cursed to roll a boulder forever uphill, Yohan is cursed to be forever trapped in the vicious circle of the velodrome, doomed never to outrun that one unsolvable case.

Cinematographer Patrick Ghiringhelli does a tremendous job; The Night of the 12th looks fantastic.

Shot very much in the vein of Nordic Noir with a sprinkling of Chiaroscuro that gives the film a visual depth whilst adding to the overall feel of bleakness that pervades throughout the film. The film is set in Grenoble and surrounded by the beautiful French Alps. However, this semi-rural setting adds to the sense of isolation and alienation that is very much reflected in Yohan.

The cast is excellent, with strong performances throughout.

Pierre Lottin, as Vincent Caron, crafts a character who is spectacularly awful. He’s an Arrogant, misogynistic abuser of women who makes your skin crawl. Lottin’s performance could have easily spilled over into caricature but never does.

Bastien Bouillon’s Yohan is cold and repressed, the very anthesis of Bouli Lanners Marceau’s raging bull. Where Yohan pushes his anger and frustration down, Marceau explodes and is self-destructive. Again, we are given a character that, in the hands of another actor, could have easily slipped over into scene-chewing but never does.

I would also be remiss if I did not mention the outstanding performance of Pauline Serieys as Nanie.

The Night of the 12th is a film that asks its audience some difficult questions.

However, there are no satisfying answers.

At one hundred and fifty-five minutes long, this is not a simple throw-it-on and let the film wash over you. This is a patiently crafted police procedural in the vein of David Fincher’s Zodiac. In fact, I found myself thinking about this film for some time after viewing it.

Unlike other murder mysteries, this is a film about the unsolvable and how that impacts the investigators.

This lack of conclusion may leave some of its audience frustrated. But for me, this was something that I found somewhat compelling. The idea is that not everything can be wrapped up comfortably, and the bad guy doesn’t get hauled away to prison.

With strong performances and excellent direction, I wholeheartedly recommend The Night of the 12th.

The Night of the 12th received a limited theatrical release on May 19, 2023, and will be released digitally by Film Movement on August 1, 2023.