All Your Faces
2023 · Directed by Jeanne Herry
Original language: French
- drama
The story
Since 2014, France's restorative justice programmes have offered a safe space for supervised dialogue between offenders and victims. Grégoire, Nawelle, and Sabine, victims of heists and violent robberies, agree to join one of these discussion groups alongside offenders Nassim, Issa, and Thomas, all convicted of violent robberies. Meanwhile Chloé, a victim of childhood sexual abuse, prepares for dialogue with her own agressor after learning he has moved back into town.
What it’s like
Soft, unhurried naturalism: long takes of people seated in plain rooms, mostly interiors under cool daylight from institutional windows, with the camera holding close on faces so every hesitation reads. The palette is muted and practical, greys, beige walls, the warm pool of a lamp in a late-evening kitchen, and the French provincial streets feel ordinary rather than picturesque. Dialogue carries nearly everything, underscored only sparingly by a quiet, understated score, so long stretches of silence between speakers do much of the work. The mood is heavy and melancholy but never bleak for its own sake, with a steady, humane attention to how people sit, wait, and try again. Pacing is deliberate and conversational, building through repeated group sessions toward small, hard-won admissions. Intensity is high in emotional terms: the accounts of robbery, assault and childhood abuse are spoken plainly rather than dramatised, so the violence lands through memory and testimony with no on-screen gore, though the subject matter is distressing throughout. The arcs follow people who have been harmed and people who have harmed others slowly confronting one another and themselves. It suits viewers who want thoughtful, character-led drama about trauma and accountability, and who are ready for emotionally heavy material delivered with restraint.
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