A Judge Judy for the Parisian Courts
By Stephen Holden
Featured in The New York Times
Published: October 9, 2004

Everyone has his reasons, as they say. And when you’re summoned to court on a misdemeanor charge, your reasons - excuses might be a better word - don’t count for much. The 10th District Court: Moments of Trial observes the daily process of justice in a Parisian court where Michèle Bernard-Requin, a woman who suggests a more crisply spoken, Gallic version of Judge Judy, presides.

As assorted Parisians, arrested on misdemeanor charges, have their day in court, the more sophisticated adults, some of whom have never run afoul of the law, are reduced to defending themselves as if they were shamed children dispatched to the principal’s office. The more defiantly they insist that they are respectable citizens who did no wrong, the more they test Ms. Bernard-Requin’s patience; the law is the law.

Take the woman accused of driving while intoxicated, who works for an art institute and who exudes an outraged, this-can’t-be-happening-to-me attitude. The woman will admit only that she had perhaps one too many glasses of wine at a dinner party. But it was very good wine, she insists. And she hardly ever drinks. But her appearance of respectability gets her nowhere, and she is fined.

A man arrested in the subway for carrying a knife is even more incredulous. He is a collector of knives and never thought of the instrument he carried as a concealed weapon. He was certain, moreover, that this particular knife didn’t qualify as illegal because of its size, and he produces documents intended to prove it. He turns out to be wrong.

The misdemeanor laws can be severe. A man who called a meter maid an epithet and apologized immediately afterward is nevertheless forced to pay civil damages to the woman. Proper manners apparently count for a lot.

The film, in which Ms. Bernard-Requin dispenses discerning but dispassionate justice, portrays a microcosm of Parisian society that makes the judicial process appear more efficient than it is in New York City. The only voice that rises in volume to the levels common in American courtrooms belongs to a hysterical defense lawyer who stretches logic far beyond the breaking point.

To make The 10th District Court, which was filmed over three months in the summer of 2003, the filmmaker, Raymond Depardon, received special permission to override a 1985 law against the filming of French trials unless they’re deemed to be of historic importance. Collectively, the dozen cases reveal a great deal about class expectations and the notion of entitlement in Parisian society.

The most miserable cases involve illegal immigrants, some of them drug dealers, who face prison as well as exile. More than one has returned to Paris after being banned from France. You sense that in Europe, as well as the United States, illegal immigration is a thorny fact of life. It can be reduced but not eradicated.

In the most disturbing case, a man accused of harassing his ex-wife seems reasonable until the woman testifies about his extreme longtime abuse. It’s the old ugly story of a man wrongly believing he owns the woman with whom he’s living and refusing to cede that ownership.

The movie, which the New York Film Festival is showing this afternoon, might leave more of an impact if the same sort of thing weren’t a glut on the American television market.
 

• Return to the 10th District Court film info page.