Du Welz’s Maldoror

Frankly, Inspector Clouseau inspires more confidence than these Belgian cops. At least he always thought he was working with his colleagues to catch criminals, albeit in his own incompetent and delusional way. In the case of Marcel Dedieu (transparently based on the real-life Marc Dutroux), the cops spend more time fighting over bureaucratic turf and protecting sources than investigating the abduction of two little girls, Cecile and Elina. Disillusioned and disgusted, Gendarme Paul Chartier quickly turns into a loose cannon, who becomes a danger to the guilty, the enablers, and himself, in Fabrice Du Welz’s Maldoror, which releases Friday on VOD.

In the late 90’s, the Belgian justice ministry finally resolved to merge the three Belgian state police forces: the Gendarmerie, the National Police, and the Judicial Police. Ironically, this only intensified the rivalries between the three forces. During the investigation of the missing girls, the respective police forces barely talk to each other, despite their overlapping jurisdictions. Resentment starts to boil over in the Italian community, as Chartier knows only too well. His fiancée, Gina Ferrara hails from a large Sicilian family.

In a bitter twist of irony, Chartier’s Gendarmerie commander, Col. Hinkel launches an investigation into Dedieu, a convicted sex offender, dubbed Operation Maldoror, but insists on narrowing the focus to stolen goods. Consequently, Chartier is absolutely forbidden to look in Dedieu’s cellar, which supposedly does not exist in the first place.

Shockingly, Du Welz and co-screenwriter follow the documented facts of the Dutroux far more faithfully than viewers would like to believe. The most egregious derelictions of duty are all based in fact.

As a result, viewers easily understand Chartier’s outrage. Anthony Bajon does not look like a typical action movie hero. However, we quickly understand his unprepossessing physicality forced him to adopt a pugnaciousness that he has trouble dialing down. It is a twitchy, nervy, acutely tragic performance.

Likewise, Sergi Lopez (whom Francophiles might recognize from prestige pictures like Leaving) has never been scummier or scarier than he is here, portraying Dedieu. There is nothing to humanize or excuse him. Yet, he is always terrifyingly believable.

Nevertheless, as a film, Maldoror often succeeds more as an absurdist bureaucratic horror show than as a thriller. After all we know who did it and for the most part how they have gotten away with it for as long as they have. Du Welz and cinematographer Manuel Dacosse clearly went for a gritty, throwback look, but the griminess and cynicism eventually become depressing.

The two-and-a-half-hour running time is also exhausting. Still, it is bold, angry filmmaking that vividly captures an era, in all its myriad flaws. Recommended for the bracing way it transports viewers back to the working-class Brussels suburbs of the 1990s, Maldoror releases this Friday (1/16) on VOD.