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When the French say polar, they're not talking about fleece jackets. They mean crime movie or novel. And 36 is the best polar in years, even if this English title is a baffling diminutive of the original 36 Quai des Orfevres (a nod to the Ile de la Cite address of the Parisian equivalent of Scotland Yard and already cited in Quai des Orfevres, a classic 1947 procedural directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot).
In 36, Daniel Auteuil and Gerard Depardieu are competing for the same promotion, and in the quest for advancement it's not easy telling cops and criminals apart.
The struggle between enforcers and transgressors of the law has been a staple of French cinema since the silent series Fantomas and Les Vampires, and reached its apotheosis in the Fifties and Sixties with films like Touchez pas au Grisbi, Rififi, Red Circle and Le Deuxieme Souffle (the
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anne billson traces an obsession with cops and criminals that dates back to Balzac
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remake of which, starring Auteuil, is currently in pre-production). It was French critics who first bestowed intellectual credibility on the thrillers of Hitchcock, and on that shadowy low-budget Hollywood genre that came to be known as film noir.
But it's no wonder the French have always taken their cops and robbers seriously. While crime stories were long dismissed by Americans as pulp fiction, the polar has its roots in novels such as Les Miserables (blueprint for The Fugitive, among other things), The Count of Monte Cristo (the ultimate revenge scenario, filmed a trillion times) and Balzac's Comedie Humaine, in which the criminal mastermind Vautrin makes several guest appearances before ending up as - what else? - chief of police.
Plus ca change? No, it's never been easy telling the cops from the criminals. 
FIRST POSTED JUNE 1, 2006
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