Strong and Moving!

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Have you seen L'HUMANITÉ? It's a movie I liked very much. What genre? Broadly, a sensational kinky drama, basically harsh and disconcerting. But its aesthetic allegiance is more important than its genre; those who understand little (or nothing) will call it 'arthouse'. In short now, L'HUMANITÉ is a thoroughly naturalist drama; the naturalist conception in art can be contested, but it has its truth, its meaning and its coherence. And L'HUMANITÉ is a good naturalist drama. Quiet, brutal, slow—paced, exciting and remarkably insightful and well—handled. The objections against L'HUMANITÉ are largely tautological—they don't bring anything that wasn't already known. Also, these objections aren't very interesting. The movie itself is much more interesting than the objections against it. Liking it requires, it's true, a bit of finesse. In a world dominated by Scorsese and Tarantino, L'HUMANITÉ's relative lack of success is natural. L'HUMANITÉ is genuine cinema, interesting as cinema.Next, let's emphasize a few things about L'HUMANITÉ. Obliquely, it's a love movie, strong on the erotica element, a kind of erotica romance. Firstly, the erotica of conjugal love. Domino, the wife, has a vague notion of the conjugal fidelity; she masturbates on the beach when she feels attracted by an unknown guy, she shows Pharaon her crotch and asks him to touch her, etc.. Why the title, why L'HUMANITÉ? Because the movie intends to depict life's texture, what humanity is made of. Again, the naturalist intention.Now further:--there is a naturalism of banality, and a naturalism of brutality and shocking images or scenes. L'HUMANITÉ belongs to the second class, but not exclusively; there are also elements of quotidian existence.The script follows superintendent De Winter's life, his investigation into a case of murder, his family and social life, his sexual perversions (kissing passionately the desperate guys), his interest for a hot blonde broad named Domino, the sex life of this Domino ….In L'HUMANITÉ you can see the superintendent De Winter eating an apple (--an apple so green you almost know he's gonna be unable to swallow that sourness--), riding his bicycle, going out; you can see Domino pissing in the sea.One of the first shots of the flick is a long take of a dead girl's vulva (--she's the victim whose death is investigated by superintendent De Winter--); this sets quite exactly the movie's tone. I thought the actors were well chosen—Pharaon, Joseph, the blonde Domino. They look, like their names, Flemish, Northern; Domino is beastly, instinctual, frank and much like the soil.A principal element of this amazing drama is Pharaon De Winter's physiognomy—he looks like Bregovic's fish—expressionless—impassible, placid, or, if thou will, merely imbecile. You know the Bregovic song, from ARIZONA DREAM? There he defines the fish's physiognomy—expressionless, etc.. His words fit the superintendent De Winter as well.There are also three pretty hot sex scenes (Domino and her husband Joseph), and two shots of Domino's crotch.A word about the cast:--Pharaon De Winter is played by Emmanuel Schotté, Domino by Séverine Caneele, and her husband Joseph by Philippe Tullier.

In France, in the small-town of Bailleul , the weird, melancholy, lonely and widow police superintendent Pharaon De Winter (Emmanuel Schotté) is investigating the brutal murder of an eleven years old girl, who was raped while returning from school. Pharaon lives with his mother, and spends most of his leisure time with his neighbor Domino (Séverine Caneele) and her fiancé Joseph (Phileppe Tullier). Pharaon feels a kind of platonic love with Domino. The police department staff is being pressed by Lille and Paris to solve the crime and a strike of the workers of a factory. This French low budget movie is developed in a too slow pace and has very human characters. I liked it a lot, but I recognize that audiences only used to watch American movies will not like 'L' Humanité'. In Hollywood, this 142 minutes running time film would be an American 30 minutes short story. But lovers of cinema as art will certainly appreciate this simple but well directed story. The trauma with the character of Pharaon, being consumed by his grieving for the death of wife and daughter, by his repressed love for Domino, by the scene of the brutal death of the child and by the pressure of the command of the police, is amazingly performed by Emmanuel Schotté. I did not understand the kiss of Pharaon in the lips of Joseph in the end of the story. My vote is eight.Title (Brazil): 'A Humanidade' ('The Humanity')

This film has been praised as shocking, fascinating, and hypnotic; and I can only conclude that I'm not easily shocked, fascinated, or hypnotized. I was lulled to sleep several times, and watched the film over the course of several days. The film is quite sedately paced. An example:You get a shot of Pharoan looking at his boss's collar. The shot of the collar holds long enough for you to think "Hm, he sweats a lot." The shot holds long enough for you to think "okay, I got that, thanks. He sweats a lot." Then it holds long enough for you to think "All right already! Go wake up the editor."A sequence like that would not be a problem when the cinematography is particularly good, except the cinematography in this film is not. It is competent, straightforward, unstylized, perhaps even dull; in other words, the cinematography serves the story perfectly.The sedate pacing might not be a problem with different cinematography, which would affect the story for the better: the film is a psychological exploration, yet the people we're meant to sympathize with are typically shown in long shots or in closeup but with largely unchanging expressions. If something is going on behind the eyes, we can only guess what it is; and from the slack-jawed expression, we guess that what it is might not even be particularly profound. Wounded, yes, sad, yes, but we've seen that before and better, and it's nothing new. We need a reason to care *this time*, and for many people that reason won't be there.The main character is a cipher, perhaps deliberately so, but the result is a film that doesn't tell you anything, and doesn't even tell you why it doesn't tell you anything--not the nihilism or the weary practicality of some noir films, but merely a bloated anecdote with an obscure or missing point. Unfortunately the anecdote, aside from being quite slow, is also almost completely humorless. The result is a film only for people with extraordinary patience and good will.

"Humanite" appears to be a film about a child murder/rape and the search for the killer. In fact, the film is a character study en masse which tediously examines a handful of players with Schotte at the center as a rural cop. A critic's darling because it is oh so different, "Humanite" could be said to be avant guarde neo-hyper-realism. Or, it could be said to be a load of crap. The film does not equal the sum of its parts and is frustratingly incongruous for no apparent reason. I personally found it strangely fascinating. However, I suspect the film going public at large will reject "Humanite" as tedious and too over-the-top. Good stuff for cinema sophisticates into French film but certainly not for everyone. (B)