S Sant Omer Even if it can be seen and re-watched, something will always escape the viewer. A mystery that the film does not attempt to elucidate – it is impossible – but that allows us to get closer. A abyssal enigma, at the two ends of life: to bring to the world, on the one hand; sacrifice the flesh of his flesh, of the other.
Alice Diop was indeed inspired by the case of Fabienne Kabou, who, a few years ago, was tried in Saint-Omer (Pas de Calais) for having deposited her very young son on Berck beach at high tide. the water that submerges it. The filmmaker had even made the trip to follow the trial. She had come back convinced that she would do something about it.
There are two characters here. On the one hand, Laurence Coly (Guslagie Malanga), whom we will only see in the defendant’s box, apart from a close-up where he walks, at night and almost from behind, a child in his arms, with the sound of the waves She is a calm and cultured young woman who scrupulously answers the questions of the magistrate (Valérie Dréville).