Der Bulle von Paris (1985)

Der Bulle von Paris: Directed by Maurice Pialat. With Gérard Depardieu, Sophie Marceau, Richard Anconina, Pascale Rocard. A moody, jaded police detective, while investigating a drug ring, falls for a mysterious woman and is drawn into a shady and dangerous scheme.

“This is the one attempt that Pialat made to do a police procedural film. The story is told of how he got Depardieu and Marceau, the two biggest stars at the time, to commit to the project, then realized he had no script. He dispatched Catherine Breillat, she of the steamy soft-core classics, to spend her nights in Belleville soaking up the atmosphere of Arab drug gangs and write a script. Of course, he hated it… But why go on. Pialatu0026#39;s films are such a triumph of will over circumstances (his own failings) that it is useless to analyze the making of them.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eHe has got Depardieu to play a detective, but somehow the character flows naturally out of Loulou, made five years previously. There is the same wildness, the same physicality, the same need to take risks. When the detectives, the hooker, the lawyer and Noria are all in the nightclub together, they are all risking something but they donu0026#39;t care much. The plot turns on a cache of drug money found in Noriau0026#39;s apartment, but that is just a convenience for the viewer; Pialat has a need to show us people under pressure, getting beaten, getting shot, spending time in prison and so forth.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eReality intrudes on fiction: Frank Karaoui–who has several scenes as a restaurant owner and drug dealer–was convicted of dealing in real life.”