SK1 (L’affaire SK1)

I have just viewed the French film SK1 (L’affaire SK1). The film is billed as a look into the bungled investigation by Paris police into 7 deaths. Eventually after several years, they are all tied togethr and it is determined there is a serial killer. But the film is much more than that. It is a look into how police investigators become so involved tn a case hat they put themselves and their families through intense emotional pain. It is about the pain that the killer suffers both from his past and from the knowing he is so compelled that he will keep doing it. It is about ego versus duty.

I walked out of the film feeling angry. Not so much at what had happened in the story (and real life) but screaming in my head “They did it again.” They being the French filmmakers. For 2 hours, I had watched a brutal, intense film, but never once saw an attack or murder. Although we did see the results of apparent torture the victims endured, we were not witness to the acts themselves. But through the police dialogue and the crime scene photos I felt the horror, the disgust and the anger. I felt my stomach tighten thinking about the crime.

For me, however, the focus of this film was really the police officers, the defense lawyer, and the accused. The excellent camera work, the superb lighting, the editing including dealing with flashbacks and the music carried me along with these people. I could feel and experience their anguish, their frustration, their feelings of inadequacy. The director placed me right there. The cinematographer set the mood in every scene with the camera angle and the lighting. He was joined throughout by the music director whose score had a consistent theme but yet but was nuanced sufficiently to reflect the specific scenes. Once again, as we often find in European films, it was what was not said that spoke the loudest and strongest. The looks in the characters eyes, the tight body positions, the expressions as they stared without talking. Ironically, this theme was even carried out to the victims’ photographs. Many of them died while talking and their facial expression and the shape of their mouth communicated to the investigators.

A gross story of depravity and incompetence was somehow turned into an incisive, beautifully made film that wraps its arms around the viewer and carries them along letting them feel, perceive and intellectualize what its characters are experiencing while wrapping them in a blanket.

Suffice to say that I believe that if this film had been made by American filmmakers the story and the focus would have been totally different. The gross crimes scenes and probably shots of the crimes occurring would have been shoved in our face. The deep look into the characters psyches would never appear. The characters would each have been hard and cold. I could go on but to no avail. This film is not an award winner but it is absolutely an exercise in presenting the art of film with respect and honor.