Alice Diop is an experienced documentary maker whose last film We centred on a group of disparate people whose lives intersect along a railway line through Paris. Before that, in La Mort De Danton, she followed a Black actor from a deprived area trying to get into a prestigious drama school. Saint Omer is Diop’s first narrative work, and she applies her observant documentarian nature to this courtroom drama with hidden depths.

Kayije Kagame plays Rama, a writer struggling to compose her next novel. She attends a criminal trial in French town Saint Omer in a bid to find inspiration for her latest work, a modern day adaptation of Greek tragedy Medea. Laurence Coly, played with ambiguous restraint by Guslagie Malanda, is on trial – accused of murdering her baby, leaving her on a beach to be taken by the waves. Is she a cold-hearted killer, a disturbed woman on the edge, or a victim of circumstance and the terrible consequences of migrant life?

Both Laurence and Rama left Senegal for France, but whereas Rama is a respected academic, Laurence is a servant forced into relationships in a bid for self-preservation. They both have complicated relationships with their mothers, and are both troubled by parenthood. Laurence claims not to know why she abandoned her child, fathered by her white employer, to certain death; Rama, meanwhile, is pregnant herself – what will become of her child?

Long static scenes unfold in the courtroom as Laurence tells her story, the white privilege of those who have mistreated her evident. But Diop, as writer and director, leaves matters ambiguous: there are no easy answers here. Laurence remains something of an enigma, articulate and intelligent like Rama, but a victim of the immigrant experience. Meanwhile, Rama’s cool façade slips as she becomes riddled with anxieties herself – a moment where Laurence makes eye contact with her and flashes a Mona Lisa smile is ripe for differing interpretations. Saint Omer is well observed, quietly powerful and remains in the psyche.

Dir: Alice Diop (12A, 122 mins)

Saint Omer is released on Fri 3 Feb

words KEIRON SELF