03/09/2024 - VENICE 2024: Fabrice Du Welz displays a spectacular change in register, using fiction to explore the case of Marc Dutroux, the collective trauma which shook Belgium in the ‘90s

When we think of Fabrice Du Welz, we think of radical cinema haunted by evil and characterised by horror, madness and, sometimes, the grotesque. Films (from The Ordeal [+see also:
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The film follows Paul Chartier (the brilliant Anthony Bajon, who proves we weren’t wrong to place out faith in him, in case we still needed confirmation), a young, idealistic police officer who finds himself caught up in a drama beyond his comprehension. Hailing from a decidedly modest background - his father is a convict, his mother a sex worker – the young man seeks salvation in law and order. Having severed ties with his past, he navigates between his professional aspirations in the police force and the large Sicilian family to which his fiancée, Gina (the magnetic Alba Gaïa Bellugi), belongs. When the opportunity arises to join a secret surveillance operation going by the code name of Maldoror and revolving around notorious paedophile Marcel Dedieu, he throws himself body and soul into his mission. Little by little, the intensity of the investigation seeps into his private life and gradually interferes with his family’s wellbeing.

As an internal war rages behind the scenes between the gendarmerie, the criminal investigation department and the civil police, hampering and dramatically undermining the investigation, Chartier becomes increasingly bogged down in events, to the point of one day hearing voices in Dedieu’s cellar during a police search. Unless those voice were real…

The entire first section of the film, exploring Chartier’s “youth”, paints an ultra-realistic portrait of the community he has chosen for himself. This realism is bolstered by the decision to cast “real” Sicilians from Charleroi whose authenticity complements the naturalistic approach of Du Welz, who also reveals a de-industrialised land abandoned by politics.

Initially confined to the margins, the character of Dedieu slowly emerges, a dark star from an evil galaxy composed of pathetic and powerful specimens. It was always going to be a gamble, fictionalising Dutroux, a figure of absolute evil. To get around this, Maldoror chooses to reinvent him, courtesy of Sergi Lopez who always excels at playing baddies. Evil slowly contaminates the story and, with it, Chartier’s guilt-consumed mind, culminating in a final showdown in the third part of the film, which transcends the realism at the beginning of the film and highlights the cathartic power of fiction, as a collective opportunity to make amends.

Ultimately, Maldoror is a demanding but accessible, large-scale fresco about Belgium in the 1990s, namely its dysfunctions and collective traumas, but also the tentacular perversity of evil.

Maldoror was produced by Frakas Productions (Belgium) and The Jokers Films (France). International sales are entrusted to WTFilms.

(Translated from French)