Humanité is a 1999 film directed by Bruno Dumont. It tells the story of a widowed, unlikely policeman investigating a rape and murder of a schoolgirl in rural France. His slow investigation is interspersed with everyday scenes of his quiet life. The film is shot with little dialogue in a contemplative and symbolical style.
Plot
In the far north of France, filmed in Bailleul, a girl of 11 has been raped and murdered as she walked to her parents' remote farm from the school bus. Called onto the case, the mentally disabled Inspector Pharaon de Winter feels extreme revulsion. After having lost his wife and child in an accident, he now lives quietly with his widowed mother. At the weekend his neighbour Domino, who is sympathetic to his deeply affected state, asks him to join her and her lover Joseph, a bus driver. They go tothe seaside and to a restaurant, but the reserved Pharaon finds Joseph ignorant and coarse. The police investigation moves slowly, with Pharaon looking into possibilities such as whether the murderer was a bus driver or a psychiatric patient. Noting that the murder site could be seen from Eurostar trains, he goes to London to interview passengers. But with no firm lead, the case is taken over by the Lille police. The factory where Domino works goes on strike and the police, led by Pharaon, have to quell a demonstration. Though outwardly angry, in fact Domino admires his quiet determination and offers herself to him. However, he rejects her advances, finding them too vulgar, and his mother warns her off. Then the Lille police arrest Joseph. When Pharaon gets to the police station, he finds him beaten up and weeping. At first baffled, Pharaon is soon surprised to find Joseph confessing in tears. Being a man of deep feeling, Pharaon comforts him, caressing him with his nose and kissing him on the mouth. When he goes home, his mother is out and Domino is at the kitchen table weeping. He comforts her. The final shot shows Pharaon sitting in a chair in his office at the police station, staring out the window, with handcuffs visibly shackling his wrists.
