Director: Jeanne Herry (France). Year of Release: 2023
A group of prison workers, preparing for a meeting with clients. The man who seems to be leading the group says: “We don’t suggest anything, we don’t speak on their behalf, we listen. We leave room for thought. No judgments, no diagnoses.” Welcome to a film about restorative justice – the attempt to put people who have committed violent crimes in conversation with victims of violence, so that some sort of forgiveness, closure and acceptance of responsibility can be reached.
We are introduced to Nassim, Issa and Thomas. Nassim is still serving a ten year sentences for breaking into a home and attacking its inhabitants when they refused to give the details of the credit cards which he had just stolen. Issa was not intending to use violence, but working with a more inexperienced partner just pushed him that way. Thomas meanwhile has been in and out of jail for 25 years for various crimes committed to help him deal with his drug dependency.
Nassim, Issa and Thomas sit in a circle together with Nawell, Sabine and Grégoire. The three are not the direct victims of the men in the room, but suffered from similar crimes, whose main effect was to destroy their self-confidence. This means that they suffer from depression and find it hard to leave the house. The victims need the sessions as much as the perpetrators. By confronting the representatives of their terrible experiences, they hope to be able to get on with their lives.
As the group – which also includes some social workers and volunteer helpers – talks, they are expected to follow some rules. There is a “talking stick” to hold, and only the person who is holding the stick is expected to speak, while everyone else shuts up and listens. This is something which works much better in theory than practise. Speakers are constantly interrupted, until someone finally suggests dispensing with a rule which only ever had symbolic value.
And this is it, for most of the film. A series of therapeutic sessions which on the face of it sound boring and repetitive, but help us view a certain character development. The various participants sometimes challenge each other’s commitment, especially when Nassim misses some sessions because his personal life intrudes. Slowly, and not as sentimentally as you might think, friendships emerge, and the various protagonists learn how they can understand and appreciate each other.
At first, many of the participants are obviously reluctant to be there. They don’t even get any time off their sentences for attending. Nassim especially always has a series of excuses which relieve him of taking responsibility for any of his actions. And yet, like the real life sessions on which they are based, the film avoids too much judgment. Of course, poverty and racism mean that Nassim has few other options if he wants to succeed or even survive in a modern capitalist society.
I’d have preferred it if the film had spent more time on the fact that two of its three “villains” are BIPoC. I know that its priorities lay elsewhere, but it would have been interesting if it spend a little more time to examine to what extent the “criminals’” fate is determined by social reasons. On the one hand we do understand that they are motivated less by greed than necessity, but on the other the solution we are shown Is more listening more than changing social conditions.
While all this is going on, Judith is preparing Chloé for a different sort of meeting – with her half-brother, who is just being let out of prison, and who raped her when they were kids. Off-screen, Judith is also having negotiations with the brother, and every so often she returns with his demands. Chloé would like him to answer some questions she has sent before they even meet. He says she must put her questions to his face. More than that, he is expecting her to apologise to him.
This is all leading up to probably the film’s most powerful scene where Chloé (played by the always brilliant Adèle Exarchopoulos) confronts her brother. There are no screaming histrionics, just a series of calm questions which ask just how much he is aware of his own culpability. This is one of those scenes which inevitably loses in the description. All I can say is, go and see the film and experience it for yourself.
One of the things which peaked my interest in this film is that Judith is played by Elodie Bouchez, 25 years after she starred in one of my favourite films ever, the Dreamlife of Angels. Now with long hair, Bouchez is still recognisable, if only for her toothy smile. While she doesn’t dominate in the same way that she did in Erick Zonca’s film – this one is very much an ensemble performance – it’s still reassuring to me that Bouchez is still out there, putting in top class performances.
You get the feeling at times, that we’re going to end up with a liberal cop-out which argues that all crimes will be resolved, if only the criminals and their victims would get to know each other a bit better. A staff talk just before the end of the film makes it clear that reality is much more nuanced. Despite the real gains that we witness within the film, an instructor makes it clear that such social work in prisons is largely a thankless task, and the workers should be grateful for small victories.
If I have any criticism of All Eure Gesichter, it is that it isn’t ambitious enough. There’s just a little too much sitting in a circle of chairs, a little too much special pleading that restorative justice is a Good Thing. At times, the film takes so much time making its (very important) point that it doesn’t give itself enough time to breathe. And yet, this is a first attempt to get restorative justice even noticed. Better films may follow, but this is surely a good start.
CinePhil 