Pierre Lentier murders an 8-year-old in horrendous circumstances. This 30-something solitary factory worker who lives on the edge of society is sentenced to death. A damning indictment of the death penalty and the manipulative behaviour of the media.
Direction
Vecchiali's clinical gaze refuses to let you look away.
Acting
Bouvet's hollow-eyed Lentier is terrifyingly ordinary.
Writing
Dialogue that weaponizes silence and media manipulation.
Director
Paul Vecchiali
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Made during France's final years of capital punishment (abolished 1981), the film directly influenced abolitionist discourse.
Vecchiali cast actual factory workers as extras, blurring documentary and fiction to implicate working-class viewers in Lentier's isolation.
FR
