riots Archives - Jeremy C. Processing

Case 137 (Dossier 137)

Director – Dominik Moll – 2025 – France – Cert. 12a – 116m

*****

A member of the internal police watchdog department investigates a complaint of police violence in the 2018 Yellow Jackets riots – out in UK cinemas on Friday, October 16th

Who watches the watchmen? Who polices the police? It’s a question with great relevance to today’s societies, including our own in the UK. In the US, the Police have the Internal Affairs. In France, the police have a branch called the IGPN (L’inspection générale de la police nationale / The General Inspectorate of the National Police). So if members of the public accuse the police of bad or criminal behaviour, they have a department set up to investigate that. An internal department, not an external body.

IGPN inspector Stéphanie Bertrand (Léa Drucker from Mars Express, Jérémie Périn, 2023; Two of Us, Filippo Meneghetti, 2019; The Blue Room, Matthieu Amalric, 2014) is working on allegations of police misconduct during the Yellow Jackets protests of 2018. She tries to be scrupulously fair in questioning an officer who threw stones at rioters, later defending him to superiors as being in a situation that put him under intense psychological pressure.… Read the rest

Joker

Director – Todd Phillips – 2019 – US – Cert. 15 – 122m
****1/2

Put on a happy face. Batman spin-off is a remarkable origin story / character study of one of that franchise’s great villains – in cinemas from Friday, October 4th

Arthur Fleck lives in a cramped apartment with his ageing single parent mother and dreams of being a successful comedian. They regularly watch the nightly Murray Franklin Show on TV together. One time Arthur was on the show in the audience and was a big hit as a heckler. Later, a video recording of him doing an act in a club, described by Murray as proving you can’t be funny just by laughing, gets such a strong audience reaction that he’s invited as a guest on the show.

There’s such a lot going on in this film that you could omit certain elements and write a number of very different – but accurate – synopses. One would involve rich entrepreneur Thomas Wayne running for mayor, believing that any poor person can improve their lot just by trying harder, inspiring a Gotham-wide protest which culminates in anarchic riots by people wearing clown masks. Another would involve Arthur’s being mugged by a gang of youths, being given a gun by fellow clown Randall (Glenn Fleshler), shooting three well-heeled but out of order suits on the subway, and becoming a serial murderer who brands himself Joker on prime time TV.… Read the rest