Saint Omer: What is this about?
Rama is a writer. She goes to the Saint-Omer Assize Court to follow the trial of Laurence Coly, a thirty-year-old accused of having ended the life of her fifteen-month-old daughter. There, Rama falters when faced with the declarations of this woman of Senegalese origin, like her, who seems incapable of freeing herself from her demons. Although endowed with a higher than normal intelligence quotient, Laurence is unable to distance herself from the weight of the traditions of her native country despite years spent in France. She claims to have wanted to shorten the suffering of a little girl who came into the world under bad auspices…
Anatomy of infanticide
For what Fabienne Kabou Did she kill her 15-month-old daughter by abandoning her on the beach? Berk on the rising tide, in 2013? To this question, the accused replied: “ I don’t know. I hope this trial can teach me that. » Haunted by this news item and the hearings she followed at the assizes of Saint-Omer (Pas-de-Calais) in 2016, the documentary filmmaker Alice Diop chose to turn to fiction to evoke “ the story of a female ghost and her tragic descent into hell, who committed the worst: infanticide », According to the defense lawyer, whose pleading, dazzling with sensitivity and intelligence, impresses. Rigorous in its legal restitution, this gripping story, nourished by tweets from Charlotte Piret (judicial journalist at France Inter), dynamites prejudices and questions the “monstrosity” of this new Medea. A punchy film awarded at the Venice Exhibition 2022 and selected to represent France at the Oscars in 2023.
Saint Omer, Wednesday October 9 at 8:55 p.m. on Arte
Julien Barcilon
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