Saint Omer: Film Review
The French legal drama Saint Omer has been critically acclaimed but I do not understand the praise – I found it so dry and dull.
Alice Diop‘s drama follows Rama (Kayije Kagame), a pregnant writer who travels to Saint Omer to attend the trial of Laurence Coly (Guslagie Malanda), who is accused of killing her 15-month-old daughter by leaving her on a beach. The trial causes Rama to reflect on the similarities between her and Laurence and think about her own impending motherhood.
Courtroom films are usually told in a streamlined, dramatic way to make the legal proceeding exciting and gripping for viewers instead of dry and tedious. Saint Omer does not do that – it eschews the courtroom drama cliches and gives us a straightforward, no-frills retelling of a trial. The jury is walked through Laurence’s life story; her upbringing, her move from Senegal to France, her relationship with an older white man and her pregnancy, all to explain why she did what she did.
Diop is a documentary filmmaker making her first feature and she takes the quiet observational approach here too. Saint Omer is essentially a recreation of a trial she actually attended about the same crime. This should have been riveting and I should have cared about Coly’s story (especially as the performances are so strong) but I struggled so hard to concentrate. Diop lets the story do the talking and doesn’t add much dramatic flair to the narrative, with large chunks of total silence, and all felt very cold and inaccessible to me.
Saint Omer will only work if you’re in the mindset for a quiet, understated movie that demands your absolute concentration. It is a challenging watch so don’t choose it if you want to chill with an easy breezy film.
In cinemas from Friday 3rd February