Established several years ago, the principle of restorative justice remains little known, even surrounded by preconceived ideas. As proof, in the face of the social drama as beautiful as it is moving I will always see your faces, who made it his subject, we go from discoveries to clarifications. Ultra-realistic, ultra-moving, Jeanne Herry’s film embraces a choral construction to better tell how restorative justice, as it is called in France, affects different people in a distinct way, depending on whether they are a victim, an aggressor or an accompanying.
Their names are Sabine, Nawelle and Grégoire, and have respectively suffered a snatching, a robbery and a burglary with kidnapping. Despite the therapies, despite the pills, despite the loving environment, their trauma continues. Restorative justice is like an improbable last chance. Nawelle, in particular, hardly believes it.
In due time, this trio will meet a second, made up of Nassim, Thomas and Issa. Imprisoned for crimes similar to those committed against the former, the latter want to move on. At each stage, Fanny and Michel, accompanying people, or professional supervisors, help them all in their individual journey.
Treated in parallel, but blending completely organically into the whole, there is also the case of Chloe, a young woman raped by her half-brother when she was a child. It is Judith who follows her, listens to her and tries to prepare her for a desired encounter, but by nature trying, and which, this is the aim of the exercise, could ultimately free her.
The entire cast is admirably truthful.
Never didactic
As with his previous film, the magnificent Pupil, who spoke about birth under X, social work and single-parent adoption, Jeanne Herry did colossal research work. However, all this accumulated knowledge, concerning both the protocols observed in restorative justice and the contrasting reactions of people towards them, never becomes cumbersome. In this way the film is never didactic.
On the contrary, the filmmaker has achieved an admirable work of integration. The theoretical aspect fades away in favor of the dramatic (and sometimes comic, like breathing) dimension. The characters walk and the story flows, clever ellipses giving breath and dynamism to the film.
To use the words of Jeanne Herry in the interview she gave last week to Duty, this is an approach that is not “documentary”, but “documented”. Not only is the result convincing, but it reaches a level that fiction rarely reaches.
Take this late sequence with Sabine, played by the always wonderful Miou-Miou (the director’s mother in real life), where she announces to the group that she will not return. Almost a recluse since an attack in the street, she believes that it is now too late for her. She mentions this son whom she is no longer able to visit, without him knowing why. She cries while talking about this grandson whom she has not seen once since his birth…
And Issa (Birane Ba), a young repentant thief, who crosses the circle to come and comfort her… He then has the right words, and perhaps he was the only one who could formulate them and thus appease Sabine. This is also the justice that this very inspiring film deals with.