This fascinating and strangely hyperrealistic documentary, by the famous photojournalist and filmmaker Depardon, invites us to witness what transpires after the Paris police have caught petty criminals red-handed and taken them down to police headquarters. There, the assistant district attorney takes down their statements and decides their fate: immersion in the system, or freedom with a hand-slap. A schlemiel who steals a bag from a car because "I wanted to see what's in it"; a shoplifter who points out that "delinquency is not for fun-it has other meanings"; an interviewer who lectures a pretty young alcoholic, "It doesn't show yet, but it will": the parade of suspects with their attitudes cum rationales, and D.A.s who variously reincarnate your school principal, builds to a tragicomedy. It becomes direct-cinema theater. (Depardon, convinced of the unique quality of the hearings of an HIV-positive prostitute, subsequently made a film about her, Muriel, 1995).