36 Quai des Orfèvres

The French crime thriller has long had a love-hate relationship with its more (commercially) powerful American counterpart – from Hollywood’s embrace of the fatale atmospherics of ’30s French poetic realism to Melville’s complimentary refinements of the cruder energies of postwar US film noir. Olivier Marchal’s hard-nosed 36… is an unsentimental, slightly OTT portrait of the ruthlessly competitive police hierarchies stationed at the Quai des Orfèvres (Wally Hammond).

Dir: Olivier Marchal. 2004. France. 110 mins. In French with English subtitles. NC16. Daniel Auteuil, Gérard Depardieu, André Dussollier, Roschdy Zem.

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