Maldoror
by Hope Madden
Deeply, darkly weird and surprising—that’s a good phrase to describe, to one degree or another, the films of Fabrice du Welz. His high-water mark for me is 2004’s Calvaire, a Christmas horror story that feels like something David Lynch might have done with Texas Chainsaw Massacre if he spoke French.
I am always eager to watch whatever springs next from a mind that conjures anything so harrowing and bizarre. His latest, Maldoror, is a true crime tale set in Belgium in the 1990s.
Paul Chartier (Anthony Bajon, Teddy) joins the Gendarmerie because he wants sincerely to make a difference. What he wants, as the film will slowly unveil, is to create for himself the life he was not born into—one with value, with family, with honor. For Paul, the unsolved missing persons case involving two small girls from the neighborhood provides the opportunity.
The crimes at the heart of the film are based on those of Marc Dutroux, a serial rapist, killer and pedophile who was able to continue to prey upon little girls in his community because of an inept and siloed legal system, as well as a corrupt justice department. Boy, there was a time when that would have sounded far-fetched, wasn’t there?
Du Welz surrounds Bajon with a large ensemble including the great Sergi López, always magnificent Béatrice Dalle, and du Welz regular Laurent Lucas. The filmmaker is at his loosest and most naturalistic with this film, a choice the cast embraces. Du Welz’s script, cowritten with Domenico La Porta, feels less well-suited to the approach.
The material is grim, covers more than a decade and casts a wide net. It’s sprawling and gritty, marked by a cynical unease about the possibility of finding truth or justice in a corrupt legal system. Yet somehow Maldoror becomes a tale of one man’s obsession, which neither fits the story being told nor the actor playing lead.
Bajon’s vulnerable, awkward cop and family man is played with an integrity that rings true. Even his early steps over the line in favor of eventual justice fit. But the character’s arc is a misfit for the film and the actor, and it reduces the story. Act 3 feels like it’s pulled from a different, lesser effort. The end result is that, though it boasts real tension and great performances, Maldoror feels like a misstep.
