The fruit ofDepardon's three-month sojourn in a police station in the Latin Quarter ofParis-as the title indicates, its concern is the police officer's routineassignments, the kind of incidents that rate at best a paragraph in localnewspapers. What emerges is a work which avoids the twin perils of voyeurism andsensationalism and succeeds in being moving, tragic, and unexpectedly hilarious.In short, we witness a human comedy worthy of Balzac. An injured drug addict isrushed to a hospital, a rape charge is investigated, a mad old woman refuses toleave her apartment° So great is Depardon's observational skill that we soonforget we are watching a documentary. By knowing exactly where to place hiscamera he allows us to discover, in the most banal incidents, insights into humanbehavior rare in all but the most finely crafted fiction.-Peter Scarlet, SFIFF'84