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When the film opens, it tells you that this is the story of a murder that has long gone unsolved in the Alps. By that point onward, it becomes clear this isn’t so much about the mystery behind the murder, but how come closure might not ever be achieved in solving this murder. Even with all the pieces being put together, the cops running things happen to be exactly why the investigation had only remained stalled for so long. Dominik Moll lets everything here unfold in the same manner that formed films like Bong Joon-ho’s Memories of Murder and David Fincher’s Zodiac, in how both films told the stories of unsolved cases and the lingering effect that they had on the officers investigating, but doesn’t quite reach those same heights.
A fictionalized account of a true story, The Night of the 12th starts fittingly enough – with the young and ambitious Yohan Vivès (Bastien Bullion) being promoted to the captain of the police force and celebrating with his colleagues. While celebrating, a young woman named Clara Royer is later found murdered while walking home, having been torched to death by an unknown assailant. Now, the new captain is appointed to investigating the case but finds himself haunted by the vague evidence as his search for her killer proves to be futile, with many people around Clara being implicated and ultimately, without a definite answer.
From the start of the movie we already know that Clara Royer’s case is one that remains unsolved. It makes clear that this film isn’t so much about trying to solve the murder but the frustrating circumstances about Clara’s world that would easily implicate many people whom she was connected with. And yet, the vagueness of the evidence as well as the reservedness of Clara’s own best friend presents a more frustrating case than planned. But even as the film finds itself focusing more on the ambitious police captain trying to pin everything down on one definite murderer. Which unfortunately is where the film begins to sag.
Like Bong Joon-ho and David Fincher before him, Dominik Moll also tries to get the viewer hooked through an attempt to understand the main motivation for why someone would kill Clara. But Moll falls short of both in that he doesn’t seem to want to interrogate how these cops’ personal frustrations get in the way of the investigation at hand. In doing so, they end up finding more private details which either sour their impression of Clara or end up reinforcing a misogynistic standard that ended up getting people like her killed on the regular. We already know because of the start of the film that this was a murder case that was ultimately left unsolved, but it’s unsatisfying because the cops feel like archetypes without depth.
Despite this, I think there’s obviously some value in the film making an example of the disconnect between the cops themselves and the case. It’s established from the start that the police officers themselves are largely male. They take pride in calling the young Clara derogatory terms, to a point of victim blaming. They also start antagonizing the people whom she knew most, to a point where they end up circling back even to her best friend as a suspect in her murder. There’s a clear divide that these cops do not wish to cross, because they’re in a social position that supposedly will allow them to do as they please to the people they’re aiming to serve – and it’s where Moll seems to be creating something more meaningful.
And yet, it all feels so limited in scope. It’s limited in the sense that you know there’s a great film that’s waiting to be made about this case. But also in the sense it simply can’t be helped that other films have taken on this subject matter in a much more engaging and interrogative fashion. Which there’s a great movie that’s waiting to be told about how the incompetency behind an investigation like this which revolves around the way that the cops handle everything only left Clara’s murder unsolved. This is no Memories of Murder or Zodiac, but you also can’t help but it’s felt how both films dug deeper into the cases knowing that there were many factors which left their respective cases unsolved. The Night of the 12th is not that film.
Watch the trailer right here.
All images via Haut et Court.
Directed by Dominik Moll
Screenplay by Gilles Marchand, Dominik Moll, based on the book 18.3 – Une année à la PJ by Pauline Guéna
Produced by Caroline Benjo, Barbara Letellier, Carole Scotta
Starring Bastien Bouillon, Bouli Lanners, Anouk Grinberg, Théo Cholbi
Release Date: July 13, 2022
Running Time: 114 minutes
Cinema from the Spectrum 