Expected in French cinemas on January 15, 2025, Fabrice du Welz's new film Maldoror is loosely based on a terrible story that marked the Belgian director's homeland: the Dutroux affair. And who better than du Welz to describe in detail this staggering investigation, which saw the gendarmerie, the local police and the criminal investigation department at loggerheads, with a series of terrible - and even fatal - malfunctions.
Belgium, 1995. The disturbing disappearance of two young girls upsets the population and triggers an unprecedented media frenzy. Paul Chartier(Anthony Bajon, the new darling of French cinema), an idealistic young gendarme from the Charleroi brigade, joins the secret Maldoror operation dedicated to the surveillance of a recidivist suspect, Marcel Dedieu(Sergi Lopez). Confronted with the dysfunctions of the police system and more determined than ever to discover who's behind these horrors, he embarks alone on a manhunt that will drive him into obsession.
On the edge of film noir and thriller, Maldoror proves less violent and to-the-point than the Belgian director's previous films. He even manages to breathe a little life into the mortifying landscape of Charleroi, the old silver city of the metallurgy era, by filming with great lightness the newlywed life of gendarme Chartier among his Italian immigrant in-laws.
But this is only a decoy. Then it's time for the longpolice investigation that led to the capture of the pedophile in 1996. Returning to his usual cast(Laurent Lucas, Jackie Berroyer, Alba Gaïa Bellugi) as well as some newcomers(Alexis Manenti), Fabrice Du Welz attempts to pinpoint the deeper evil, in the manner of Lautréamont in his work Les Chants de Maldoror , which gives the film its name.
During the first two-thirds of the film, the real investigation is told in a very precise, well-documented way (as in the famous scene of the gendarme who hears children whispering in the Marcinelle house), while taking care to change the first and last names of each protagonist in the case, both accused and victim - Marc Dutroux becomes Marcel Dedieu, Michel Lelièvre Didier Renar, Michelle Martin Monique Marini, and Michel Nihoul becomes Jacky Dolman.
But Maldoror takes a completely different turn in its final third, tipping unexpectedly into themost unexpected of uchronies... not to say clumsy? Because by giving particular importance to certain theories (on the famous 'networks of notables', which have since been debunked by the courts), the director veers towards conspiracy theories, and byextrapolating a story as significant as the Dutroux affair, the Belgian director puts a morally daring two-headed baby in our arms.
While the film's ending will be cathartic for some, this fantasy of justice will probably not appeal to those most affected by theDutroux affair.
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