Polisse

Polisse is a fast-paced, tragic, touching, emotional and occasionally hilarious look at the French police's Child Protective Unit (CPU). It plays like a documentary, or a hard-hitting two hour premiere to a new cable police procedural...

Polisse, this fascinating sprawl of a French police drama centers on a dozen men and women who work for the Child Protection Unit in Paris. To our eyes, though, they appear less like hard-nosed cops than members of a scraggly English department...

To put it simply, Polisse is by far one of the best films of the year, and of the last several years. As another critic accurately put it, Polisse is like a season of The Wire packed into one film.

Unsparing in its portrayal of the seedier side of French society, only Polisse's loose focus keeps it from matching The Class for emotional punch. It's still a worthy companion piece to TV police procedurals like Spiral.

POLISSE is a hard-hitting French drama following the professional and personal lives of a group of Parisian police in charge of child protection, seen through the eyes of an “embedded” photographer (played by director Maiwenn).

However, everyone else should think twice before straying anywhere near Polisse. Certain scenes are guaranteed to disturb - perhaps even distress - those of a more delicate disposition.

Polisse is French multi-hyphenate Maiwenn's third feature film as (co)writer, director and featured actress, and it's her most ambitious, and successful. A slice-of-life look at the working and personal lives of Paris' Child Protection Unit of the...

Before you head into Maïwenn’s Cannes Jury Prize-winner Polisse, maybe take a couple of deep breaths, because for the next two hours you’re not going to have any. Often compared to The Wire, this cine-vérité French policier barrels full steam ahead...

When The Battle Of Algiers was released in 1966, Gillo Pontecorvo’s classic war film about the Algerian struggle against the French occupation was so convincing in its newsreel authenticity that it needed a disclaimer to remind viewers that they...

"I was scared nobody'd take me seriously," says Melissa, explaining to police officer Fred (rapper Joeystarr) why she has adopted a 'granny look' - fake glasses, severe hairstyle - while on assignment photographing the activities of a Child Protection...

A woman touches her son inappropriately to quiet him down, a gym teacher takes a young student into a toilet stall, and a woman living on the streets gives her 10-year-old son to authorities so “he doesn’t turn out like me.” Those are some of the cases...

In this intense, upsetting Cannes Jury Prize winner, French writer/director Maïwenn co-stars as a photographer following Paris’ Child Protection Unit through the daily barrage of incest and infant abuse.

Nominated for a record-breaking 13 Cesar Awards (French Oscars) and winner of the Jury Prize at last year's Cannes Film Festival, this urgent, fly-on-the-wall affair plays out like a grittier big-screen take on its more famous US TV-related cousins...