The year is 2018, and Stephanie Bertrand (played by a quietly magnetic Lea Drucker) is a police officer determined to fulfil her job to the best of her abilities. Her task, however, isn’t a particularly easy and popular one. She is responsible for investigating the police attack that left teenager Guillaume Girard (Côme Péronnet) with a cracked skull and life-changing injuries. Her findings could bring the organisation within which she works herself into disrepute. How could the same institution praised for the heroics during the Bataclan terrorist incident just three years earlier step onto the wrong side of the law? How could those who should protect us instead strike us?

Guillaume, his mother and his best friends had travelled from their small town of St Dizier to Paris in order to join the Yellow Vest protests. They had no clear political affiliation, and were driven by a frustration with a system which – in their view – had repeatedly failed them. That combined with the mere desire to journey the French capital. Guillaume and his buddy Remi (Valentin Campagne) were walking peacefully when the police inexplicably shot them. Despite overwhelming institutional reluctance, Stephanie eventually identifies the culprits and interviews them. The conversations reveal that these four male officers possess an unhinged sense of self-entitlement, and the perception that protestors are inherently bad (nevermind the Roman concept of presumption of innocence).

The topic of race is also central. Stephanie, Guillaume and Remi are all white. Black witness Alicia Mady (Guslagie Malanda) sheds a brand new and unexpected light on the proceedings, making the humble and open-minded Stephanie question her own values and principles. Malanda’s role is brief however very strong – you may remember the actress for her hypnotic performance in Alice Diop’s St Omer (2022). Meanwhile, Stephanie’s son Victor grapples (Solàn Machado-Graner) with the fact that both of his parents are police officers, and that the profession is increasingly unpopular.

Stephanie has to contend with two of French philosopher Althusser’s repressive state apparatuses: the police and the judiciary. This is a battle that she’s almost certain to lose, historical data suggests. No police officer in France has ever lost their job due to violent behaviour, the film reveals.

It is the realisation of her powerlessness dealing with state forces that have little interest in justice – both the police and the judiciary are more concerned with preserving their public image than with meting out the punishment that the officers deserve – that impacts Stephanie the most. This is when her most noble values – her sense of humanity, compassion and real justice – shine. It is precisely this sense of humanity that is frowned upon in her job, where rational behaviour is intended to prevail, and the most sincere reactions are dismissed as sentimental and unprofessional. A very enlightening and cathartic conversation with her boss examines the problematic relationship between legislation and one’s moral moral compass, while also exposing the loopholes that allow impunity to perpetuate within the state.

This 115-minute film is profound yet barely groundbreaking. Stylistically, it is rather middle-of-the-road, oscillating between realism and police drama, Thematically, it asks the very fundamental question: how do you hold those in charge of justice to justice? The answer is yet to be found. Most countries have taken only baby steps – if any at all – in the right direction. The United States has punished the killers of George Floyd, while in the United Kingdom the murderer of Jean Charles de Menezes has never faced justice, and the investigation was fraught with meddling and police corruption. We still have a long way to go.

Case 137 premiered in the Official Competition of the 78th Festival de Cannes, when this piece was originally written. It was released on the same day as its informal companion piece, Sergei Loznitsa’s Two Proescutors. This sombre and profound pan-European production also exposes the repercussions of investigating and confronting Althusser’s state apparatuses in France, during Stalin’s Great Purge. Also showing at the 31st Sarajevo Film Festival.