POLISSE/Austin Film Society

Chale's on vacation so we all laughed heartily when Holly Herrick. a Brooklyn transplant and the new Associate Artistic Director of AFS, opened the evening with "Hi, I'm Chale Nafus."  An acknowledgment to a tough act to follow.  I very much looked forward to last evenings film because of it's content and  the police genre.  I spent my 36 years as a social worker working in the area of child protection.  33 years  as a hospital based social worker who made regular referrals to ACS and Child Protection Units.  This film is an open window into the lives of men and women police officers whose specialty is Child Protection.  The film is French and Holly forewarned us that much is made about class/language and syntax.  No one works in the field of child protection without being acutely aware of class.  And so when the unit makes a raid to a campground of gypsies and removes all of the children from their parents it is a wrenching scene of class conflict.  While the children are exploited to commit crimes they are fiercely connected to their families.  The director lightens the moment when music is played on the bus transporting them to a shelter and the kids strut their stuff.  The film is emotionally raw and we are shown the imperfections of the people who choose this work.  They are clearly untrained in matters of the heart and psyche and so their work wreaks havoc on their personal lives. They love one another and frequently that turns into romantic/sexual love.  They hurt their loved ones.  They react personally to their cases and interview people with a lot of yelling and judgment.  Children aren't separated from their alleged perpetrators while being interviewed.  The unit cracks up laughing when a young girl seriously admits she performed sexual acts to retrieve her smartphone from a group of boys.  The actor remains stoic while the unit is laughing.  Hard stuff to watch.  Good for people to know and learn about.  Abe told me to suspend what I know about procedures and police who do this stuff in NYC.  Hard to do.  A well made truthful film about what really happens to kids in this world.