A civil servant is jogging along the Seine after work, two colleagues are watching football in a pub, France versus Germany, a friendly game. The boss is still on the plane, and only a lonely colleague is working the night shift in the office of the anti-terrorist unit. But at that moment all the phones start ringing at once, and then everything happens very quickly.
The jogger sprints back to the office, colleagues hurry out of their bar, and the boss named Fred (Jean Dujardin) on the plane knows he won’t be able to make it home that night, or any nights after. It’s Friday November 13th, 2015 in Paris. Islamist terrorists are carrying out suicide bombings at the Stade de France, shooting people in cafés, on the streets, in the Bataclan concert hall.
“November” is the almost laconic title of the film by Cédric Jimenez, which seven years later fully ramps up the stress level of November 13 and the days that followed. Right now, after the first trial against the assassin and helpers ended with numerous convictions in the summer, several films are being released that deal with the traumatic event – most of them from the perspective of the victims. “Revoir Paris” tells the story of a survivor of a similar attack who has lost her memory; “You don’t get my hate,” which opens in Germany in November, is about a man who loses his wife in the Bataclan. “November” takes a different perspective, that of the security agencies.
As the streets fill with flashing lights and sirens, the office swells with frenzied officials. Telephones are glowing, orders are being barked, teams are dispatched. The latest numbers of victims flicker on the television screens, and President François Hollande calls for a state of emergency. The city is sealed off, no: the whole country.
The collective furor, the hatred of the Islamists and the reaction of the state: all this pulls the viewers into a spiral of excitement. The camera moves fast and never comes to rest. The frenetic search for the fugitive terrorists gives you goosebumps, even if you really don’t want them.
“Nothing Personal” – that could also be the name of the film
At the same time, however, there is a strange counterbalance to this excitement, in the form of the rule that Fred, the boss, issues to the workforce on the night of the attacks: There is no room for personal emotions here. We work cool and professional. Those who are personally affected, please go home.
“Nothing personal.” That could be the name of the movie. We don’t learn anything private from the boss named Fred, from his colleague Héloïse (Sandrine Kiberlain) or from Capitaine Inès (Anaïs Demoustier) – not even which functions in the unit they hold exactly. They are all nothing but loyal, devoted servants of a state defending itself here from men bragging in interrogation rooms how they will kill all “your wives and your children.” At this point, Fred can no longer contain himself and gives the Islamist cheeky rascal a resounding slap in the face, for which Héloïse immediately warns him: Such behavior is under no circumstances tolerable. Fred immediately apologizes.
Because of course everyone makes mistakes, not least because of sleep deprivation. Inès, the jogger from the beginning, pursues a suspect on her own and her overzealousness endangers the entire operation. And yet every slip-up is just another ray of light illuminating the film’s horizon of selfless sacrifice and process optimization. Humans are inefficient, flawed and imperfect, it’s in their nature. But that doesn’t mean they can’t strive for perfection, especially when terrorists are on the loose. Inès repents, hits herself a few times on the head, takes an aspirin, and carries on.
Days without sleep: Jean Dujardin plays the boss of the terrorist hunters in “November”.
(Photo: Studiocanal/SC)
The fact that in this apology by the security authorities France presents itself as a nation that was (or still is?) in the “war on its own territory” is politically more than questionable. On the other hand, it is fascinating that every personal impulse, every individual initiative, every human emotion disappears behind the mask of cool reasons of state and professionalism. This creates a remarkable, almost abstract symmetry from which hatred never disappears, but erodes: Both terrorists and officials live for terrorism – only from two different sides. They are almost at eye level.
Therefore, “Novembre” is reminiscent of Kathryn Bigelow’s “Zero Dark Thirty” from 2012, which tells of the hunt for Osama Bin Laden and his killing by American special forces in May 2011. There, too, the CIA agent played by Jessica Chastain was completely absorbed in her professional search for the mastermind behind 9/11. Matching the masterpiece from Bigelow’s film, the storming of Bin Laden’s home in Pakistan, here is the November 18 police attack on a building in Saint-Denis. What was intended to serve as a catharsis quickly turns out to be an impersonal killing mechanic from which no one emerges as a winner.
November, F 2022 – directed by Cédric Jimenez. Book: Olivier De Mangel. Camera: Nicolas Loir. With Jean Dujardin, Sandrine Kiberlain, Anaïs Demoustier. Distribution: Studiocanal, 105 min. Theatrical release: October 20, 2022.