«He buzzes like a fridge, he’s like a detuned radio» (“it crackles like a fridge, it’s like a radio out of tune”). In the Radiohead’s 1997 song, the title Karma Police referred to Orwell’s universe, to the “thought police” of 1984. In Julien Paolini’s second feature film, there is a similarly unhinged side, full of references (crime novels, crime novels and comics, underworld thrillers and bad boys), an attempt at a mental universe under lithium, in the head of a depressed policeman, crackling like a neon light at the end of its life.
The kind of film (genre) which we can easily recognize as trying things out, freewheeling figures, takes risks and falls back, does as he pleases without going beyond the background noise of his great ambitions. Scattered, bizarre lights emerge, tracks, drop-offs, cardboard hallucinations and picturesque city views. Karmapolice or the love story of a man and a neighborhood: Angelo and Château-Rouge, in Paris. A member of the narcotics squad on sick leave after a breakdown over a crack case, Angelo feels guilty about the death of a gray-faced drug addict who haunts his sleepless strolls in the Goutte d’Or.
Potiche role
The inspiration is taken from Sidney Lumet’s Snake – a dashing Syrus Shahidi takes on Pacino’s long hair, beard and bob outfit – and to Michael Mann, his inner mazes under yellow blue red substances, with a cloud of Lynch for the voyeuristic psychedelic infusion. Why do we say that an imitation is pale when here it is local color, dapper folklore, sidewalk poetry, the New Hollywood and its fascination with chasms, cripples, the indeterminacy of the cop and the thug in the line of fire. To the girlfriend (Karidja Touré), falls the ornamental role of sharing the hero’s bed, the jacuzzi, the appetizers for the buddies and the dreams of the bourgeoisie.
The height of it for a film noir is that it lacks atmosphere, moist exudation, and a disturbance. The story is woven from frayed meanders, and the other “chicken” (Alexis Manenti), a loser character as a possible double martyr of the cop at rock bottom, only gives birth to an egg white swallowed by a lost cameo, a grimace soup and a curious delirium set against a backdrop of Enrico Macias’ song. That Macias resonates creepy contributes to the film’s flashing charm.
Karmapolice by Julien Paolini, with Syrus Shahidi, Alexis Manenti, Karidja Touré… 1h20.
Source: www.liberation.fr
