On a long and deep beach at night, with little but moonlight shimmering vaguely on the waves, a woman gently but unhesitatingly deposits a baby in the sand, near the rising tide, and walks away. I’d have sworn that I saw this in the French director Alice Diop’s film “Saint Omer,” yet I’d also swear that I didn’t—because, although no such scene is included in the movie, it’s described so vividly in the course of the action that I felt as if it was shown onscreen.
The film’s two main characters, and their real-life cognates, are Black women. Like Rama, Diop was born in France to a Senegalese family; like Laurence, Kabou was born and raised in Senegal and came to France to attend university.
Diop’s distinctive dramatization of the trial—and its impact on Rama—arises from France’s specific judicial practices, in which defendants are subject to direct questioning by judges as well as by prosecutors and defense attorneys. In composing the courtroom scenes, Diop gives the characters, and especially Laurence, virtual arias: extended scenes and lengthy monologues in which they develop the narratives that their interrogators demand of them.
Laurence’s testimony reveals her embittered relationship with Luc, a former businessman and a sculptor, who is married to another woman, from whom he’s separated. An encounter with Laurence’s mother gives Rama a glimpse at the deforming force of their conflict-ridden bond.
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