Film Review: The Night of the 12th never loses sight of the facts or people in a murder investigation
The Night of the Twelfth.
- The Night of the 12th
- ★★★★☆
Set near Grenoble in France, (15A) is a grimly realistic police procedural drama, and with good reason: it’s based on a true story, and adapted from a book by Pauline Guéna that dissects the investigation by the Grenoble Criminal Squad into the murder of Clara Royer (Lula Cotton-Frapier), who was fatally set on fire by an unknown assailant as she walked home from a night spent socialising in her friend’s home.
Led by Captain Yohan Vivès (Bastien Bouillon), the Criminal Squad leave no stone unturned in their investigation, the downside to which is that every man Clara has encountered in the past number of years becomes a potential suspect with a motive to kill.
Dominik Moll’s film is very strong on the prosaic details of a murder investigation – the interminable trawling through files, the apparent break-throughs that are revealed as dead ends, the questioning of a depressing litany of creeps, bullies and stalkers – while also widening the scope of the story to embrace the personal lives of the cops, and those left behind to mourn Clara.
The film never loses sight of what truly matters, however, which is simply that Clara was brutally murdered by a man, and it is this that sustains Yohan’s obsession with the case as the days give way to weeks, and weeks to months.
A stark, unsentimental and radical take on the police procedural story, The Night of the 12th asks hard questions about violence against women, knowing in advance that there are no acceptable answers. (cinema release)
