In November, 2013, a baby girl was found drowned on the beach at Berck-surMer, in northwest France. Not long afterward, police arrested the child’s mother, Fabienne Kabou, who was charged with murder. Born and raised in Dakar, Kabou was academically bright, and had come from Senegal to France, where she pursued her studies. She had moved in with a much older man; he was the father of the girl who died.
One of those who attended the subsequent trial, in the town of Saint-Omer, was the filmmaker Alice Diop. Hitherto, Diop’s work has been in documentary; now we have her first feature, “Saint Omer,” which is clearly and closely inspired by the case of Kabou, and which retains the attentiveness—the patient ardor—of a good documentary. Much of the movie is set in a courtroom, and includes not just lengthy scenes of cross-examination but also, more discomforting still, moments of suspended animation, as it were, during which one character stares or glares at another. The presiding judge (Valérie Dréville) is, quite rightly, the glarer-in-chief.
This story is from the January 16, 2023 edition of The New Yorker.
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This story is from the January 16, 2023 edition of The New Yorker.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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