L'humanité
In the far north of France, filmed in Bailleul, a girl of 11 is raped and murdered as she walked to her parents' remote farm from the school bus. Called onto the case, Inspector Pharaon de Winter feels extreme revulsion. After losing his wife and child in an accident, he now lives quietly with his widowed mother.
At the weekend his neighbour Domino, who is sympathetic to his shocked state, asks him to join her and her lover Joseph, a bus driver. They go to the seaside and to a restaurant, but the reserved Pharaon finds Joseph ignorant and coarse.
The police investigation moves slowly, with Pharaon looking into possibilities such as whether the murderer was a bus driver or a psychiatric patient. Noting that the murder site could be seen from Eurostar trains, he goes to London to interview passengers. But with no firm lead, the case is taken over by the Lille police.
The factory where Domino works goes on strike and the police, led by Pharaon, have to quell a demonstration. Though outwardly angry, in fact Domino admires his quiet determination and offers herself to him. But he is not ready for such a relationship, and his mother warns her off.
Then the Lille police arrest Joseph. When Pharaon gets to the police station, he finds him beaten up and weeping. Being a man of deep feeling, he comforts him. When he goes home, his mother is out and Domino is at the kitchen table weeping. He comforts her. The final shot shows Pharaon sitting in a chair in his office at the police station, staring out the window, with handcuffs visibly shackling his wrists.
violence, murder