10th District Court: Moments of Trials: If Judge Judy were human [SFIFF '05 movie note]

Raymond Depardon's courtroom doc features a higher proportion of nonwhites than any French film I recall. This is simply because African and Middle Eastern immigrants were most willing to appear on camera, as if appearing in a movie would ensure their right to stay in the country - even if that were the opposite of what their sentences pronounced. Depardon is a friend of the presiding judge, the chatty, humane, firm Michèle Bernard-Requin. But though he draws a couple of laughs at the defendants' expense, mostly he's on their side, so that even when we see Bernard-Requin is legally justified, the law still seems harsh. What's most shocking is how inept the defense attorneys seem to be, leaving doubt over whether justice has been done.

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Depardon on why there's so much direct conversation between Bernard-Requin and the defendants: "She loves to talk."