Writers: Fabrice du Welz and Domenico La Porta
Director: Fabrice du Welz
In the mid-1990s, Belgium was almost ripped apart by the police’s mishandling of a case where Marc Dutroux murdered four girls over four years, two of them starving to death in the cellar of his house while he was in prison. Police had visited his house twice before the girls died and even heard children’s voices but never found the hidden cells that Dutroux had constructed. Director Fabrice du Welz has drawn freely on the Dutroux case for his new film, too freely, as it turns out.
At the start of Maldoror, text tells us the main reason it took so long to find the girls and arrest the perpetrator is that the Belgian police force was not centralised with the three sections – including the local police and the gendarmes – often not cooperating in cases. Du Welz suggests that his fictional character Paul Chartier is the one who exposed the deadly inadequacies of such a system. But in his retelling of the story, du Welz ultimately fashions Chartier as an action hero.
All the names have been changed – Dutroux is now Marcel Dedieu – but the early scenes will be familiar to a Belgian audience. Two girls have been abducted, but the police are slow to do anything, causing the community to take the search into its own hands. But one day, Charitier gets a tip-off from a police informant about an acquaintance who once talked about kidnapping young girls. The young gendarme’s colleagues are dismissive of this lead, saying that the informant often makes things up to get a little cash.
But Chartier’s persistence pays off, and his superior allows for surveillance of Dedieu’s property. However, the remit of the gendarmes is limited; Chartier is not allowed to search the house. He and his partner (played by the watchable David Murgia) sit in a car and watch the farmhouse.
As a police procedural movie, Maldoror works well with enough action and intrigue in the first half and breathless climaxes every 45 minutes or so, suggesting that television might be the right home for such a story, which spans 155 minutes. It could be much shorter if du Welz didn’t spend so much time with the Sicilian family of Chartier’s wife. Of course, we must have backstory, but he doesn’t have to linger so long on the wedding. The whole point of showing Gina’s family is so that the older generation can call for Sicilian justice, a vengeful system of an eye-for-an-eye that this film seems to favour. Still, it’s a nice surprise to see Béatrice Dalle appear at the wedding party.
As this is a work of fiction, du Welz can also make use of unsubstantiated claims gathered from Wikileaks that high-ranking policemen, lawyers and politicians were also involved in the paedophile ring. Corrupt coppers with not-so-secret secret tattoos now try to pervert the course of justice. Du Welz has cited Tarantino as an influence, but some viewers may be reminded of TV’s Line of Duty as Maldoror reaches its explosive ending.
Anthony Bajon is solid as the slightly goofy policeman driven to weigh out justice at all costs because his father was a criminal, and when we see him fighting petty bureaucracy, he shines. However, he is not as convincing as the gun-toting nemesis he becomes by the end of the film. Alba Gaïa Bellugi is excellent as the lively Gina, but as the film progresses, her character is sidelined, despairing of his dogged commitment at work when his priorities should be at home.
To some in Belgium, Fabrice du Welz’s film will act as retribution for these heinous murders that shocked the nation to its core. But to others, it may be just too soon to rake the ashes.
Maldoror is screening at the BFI London Film Festival 2024.
