Nos frangins

I saw this at the Film Festival of Angoulême. The film was also screened in Cannes out of competition. The reputation of the director made me choose this for the first screening I attended at the festival. The film takes place in 1986 and starts with the murder of two young Algerian men by the French police in Paris. I am too young to have heard of this affair, but it was something that shook the whole society and led to big student protests. The terrible thing is that the police tried to cover it up and almost succeeded were it not for witnesses and the determination of one of the families to prosecute the responsible officers.

The problem of the film is that it's out of balance. One of the families is given a lot of screen time, and the other very little. The structure is meant to make the events hit us extra hard, but unfortunately Bouchareb is not able to fulfill his ambitions. The actors are excellent, but they don't have much to do. For instance the police inspector is just wandering around looking serious.

Not a bad film, but I expected more.