Back in the van, she opens his sealed file and learns he was tortured back in Tajikistan, where he will likely be killed if sent over there by force. After they arrive at an asylum center outside of Paris, where a fire has broken out, Virginie catches a glimpse of their wounded soul of a prisoner. When we learn early on that Virginie and Aristide have been having an affair, with the former now pregnant with the latter’s baby, things begin to heat up inside the squad vehicle as the two cops, along with Erik, are sent to take Tohirov to the airport. They’re all the kind of stereotypes seen in other cop movies, but the cast is convincing enough, and the changing viewpoints intriguing enough, to allow you to forget some of the broader aspects of the writing and delve into the character dynamics. And Erik is a no-nonsense cop whose perfect track record is impeded by a nasty drinking problem that keeps coming back to haunt him. Aristide is the laid-back jokester, though he’s also a sentimental type who’s easily impacted by what he witnesses on the job. Virginie is one of the sole women in her highly macho patrol squad, working overtime to get away from a husband and a new baby she hardly sees. Told through three distinct points of view until they mesh together after the first act into a more classic narrative, the film follows coppers Virginie (Efira), Aristide (Sy) and Erik (Gadebois), all of whom work in the same Paris precinct but have drastically different lives.

Here, in a script she adapted with Claire Barré from Hugo Boris’ 2016 novel, she depicts law enforcement as a world both gloomy and tender, focusing on the dicey relationships her three cops have with one another, as well as with the mute Tohirov (Maadi), an asylum seeker from Tajikistan they’ve been ordered to send back home. She makes precisely the kind of mid-budget, competently middlebrow movies that are disappearing more and more from theaters and turning up nowadays on streamers. Over the last decade, the chameleon-like Fontaine has directed everything from a high-profile fashion biopic ( Coco Before Chanel) to an artsy rom-com starring Isabelle Huppert ( My Worst Nightmare) to a queer coming-of-ager ( Reinventing Marvin) to a stark World War II drama about pregnant nuns ( The Innocents), each time applying her polished style and skillful hand with actors to the story in question. 'A Piece of Sky' ('Drii Winter'): Film Review | Berlin 2022

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