If Michael Cimino directed Zodiac, then you’d probably have a movie like Fabrice du Welz’s Maldoror. An atmospheric, sensory over-excitation, painfully slow boil of a thriller that picks up momentum as the depths of the plot rise.
Anthony Bajon’s young and enterprising cop, Paul Chartier, is fastidious and meticulous and a source of mockery from his fellow officers, who pay him out on primarily because he puts their efforts to shame. Then, amid Chartier’s life taking a welcome sail through calm waters, his job is going well, and he’s about to be married to his beloved Jeanne ‘Gina’ Ferrara (Alba Gaïa Bellugi), the horrific abduction of two young girls polarizes the community.
Having made a name for himself as a young officer, they then assigned Chartier to special police, engaging in the constant surveillance of a local criminal believedto be linked to a child trafficking operation. In a Scorsese’s The Departed kinda deal, Chartier, under orders, is to report to the inspector and to keep his findings within the unit.
Paul fights resistance and laziness from his colleagues as he, piece by piece, picks up breadcrumbs from the trail as he tails the investigation’s chief suspect. All the while, the corrupt are collecting cash, partaking in unspeakable vices with their victims, and worst of all, the tracks leading to them are fiendishly concealed.
Chartier’s life is in full swing as he welcomes his first child amid awkward but forward progress in his prolonged stakeout. Soon, he finds the players involved are more than first assumed, and the extent of the operation, along with the final solution to keep witnesses or victims from escaping to press charges, is medieval in its brutality.
“…the horrific abduction of two young girls polarizes the community.”
Paul is so deep in murky water that he swiftly drifts into the same psychosis that drove Jack Nicholson’s Jerry Black insane in The Pledge. And if you’ve seen Sean Penn’s searing little drama, you’ll know, just like our eventual ex-cop in Maldoror. He didn’t snap because he was wrong. He went that way because he was right and no one would listen.
Chartier pushes and persists past the point of no return, until his friends, family, and even partner in arms have to walk away. The obsession with the details is driving the young man crazy. He may have everyone convincing him he’s lost his mind. But that’s only because he’s too close to the truth.
Anthony Bajon has a Jesse Plemons like screen presence, along with a conviction of character that allows him the expertly shoulder this heavy-weight murder/mystery, that not only stands as a magnificent example of the abduction-movie genre, but handles the parallel narratives between the hunter and the hunted with such a deft hand, they dance together effortless before landing in a jaw-dropping shocking conclusion.
To the director Fabrice, his co-writer Domenico La Porta, the entire cast and crew, Maldoror is a picture that invokes memories of great filmmakers and their contributions to the genre, whilst staying culturally unique and period perfect. Though it’s strange to think of a film set in the 90s as a period, the frailties of that technological period we were in allowed for such dark secrets as these to go undiscovered and unpunished.
"…a magnificent example of the abduction-movie genre..."
