Cédric Anger, once a critic for Cahiers du Cinéma, wrote and directed this chilling chronicle of notorious serial killer Alain Lamare (here renamed Franck Neuhart and played by Guillaume Canet). In a truly mordant twist, while Lamare was terrorizing France in the winter of 1978-79, he was also an outstanding gendarme tasked with apprehending the killer. His victims were all helpless young women, whom he stalked and shot while trying to start a love affair with his pretty cleaning lady (Ana Girardot). Anger follows in the footsteps of Friedkin and Fincher in divesting all glamour from crime, instead showing the dead ends that vex the crime fighters and the dark souls that plague the criminals.
