The Monopoly of Violence

2020 ‘Un pays qui se tient sage’ Directed by David Dufresne

As anger and resentment grow in the face of social inequalities, many citizens-led protests are being repressed with an ever-increasing violence. In this documentary, David Dufresne gathers a panel of citizens to question, exchange and confront their views on the social order and the legitimacy of the use of force by the State.

86 mins More details at IMDb TMDb Report this film

Popular reviews

Review by Lucy ★★★ 3

NYFF 2020: film #3
“only the state has the right to be violent. when we respond to that violence, we go to jail. we risk losing our children, we risk our jobs, our lifestyle, even if our lifestyle isn’t great”
as timely as ever. real footage of police brutality paints a horrifying picture as interviews weave in and out, the speakers commenting the the clips and sometimes even arguing opposing sides with each other. i’m not that well versed with the specifics of french politics, but it’s chilling to see the similarities between france and what’s been going on in america, especially this year. anyways... ACAB
Review by Zach Shevich ★★★★

NYFF #2:
An overwhelming, fraught documentary that could not feel more timely. Scenes of police clashing with protesters across 13 French cities, largely captured by cell phone cameras, teeming with both justified and unjustified rage. Yet, the police are given the legitimacy to enact violence, and consequentially it’s the people they’re supposed to protect that are left with an eye missing, a hand blown off by grenade fire, or dead. Watching as an American, it’s eerie to see how much a foreign democracy’s problems mirror our own.
Filmmaker David Dufresne contrasts the shocking street-level images with shots of the same undisturbed streets later, exemplifying society’s ability and desire to move forward without change. Dufresne also eschews the typical talking head…
Review by Harris Mayersohn ★★★

Hard to review. Could use more context to explain the strife in France, but a fascinating, if not dry, philosophical look at the totalitarian function of police in modern democracy. Interspersed with some real brutal, visceral scenes from the streets.
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“There are three kinds of violence. The first, mother of all others, is institutional violence. It legalizes and perpetuates domination, oppression and exploitation. It crushes and eliminates millions of people in its silent and well-oiled cogs.
The second is revolutionary violence, which is born of the will to abolish the first.

The third is repressive violence, which stifles the second by making itself the helper and accomplice of the first violence, the one that causes all the others.

There is no worse hypocrisy than only calling the second one “violence,” while pretending the first one, that gives it life, and the third one, that kills it.”
Review by Forrest Cardamenis ★★★

Best part is the comparison between Putin and Macron and how Putin's is a preemptive regime emphasizing "order," keeping the streets clear by arresting people before they get into the streets, whereas Macron's is one that emphasizes "law," allowing people to assemble but then finding reasons to brutalize them for the smallest perceived slight.
Review by Jon Ursenbach ★★★★

Seeing a smattering of people on here saying that they wish this gave more context to the gilets jaunes protests depicted here, and do you really require that to understand the framing of the film?
Mélanie Ngoye-Gaham, a social worker depicted being hit by a police grenade in the back of her neck gives a powerful monologue after rewatching the footage of her attack:
They award the violent. They give medals and bonuses to the most violent cops. So only the state has the right to be violent. It's violent through its police and through its reforms.
When it reforms housing benefits, it doesn't affect the richest, it affects the poorest, They get help to pay their rent because they…
Review by Isaac Feldberg ★★★½

David Dufresne has made my favorite kind of documentary, a highly dialectical and piercing excavation of a topic from multiple angles. Enraging and eye-opening, it weaves between discussions of Weber or Arendt and cell-phone footage of violent confrontations and cheeks ripped open by pullets, practice and theory. It has a way about it that is at once very French and far more philosophically insightful about police worship, the state’s monopoly on violence, and the terrors of living under a “democ-tatorship,” as the film says, than a more traditional exposé.
Review by OmarKajjaj ★★★½

I moved to Paris around the time Macron was elected and I was actually excited to see the direction the country was taking under the leadership of a young charismatic president.
Within the first month of his presidency, his first policy was to take 60 euros a year out of the pockets of students to balance the budget deficit.
I witnessed the first sparkles of what will be known as the yellow vests movement (le mouvement des gilets jaunes), one of the rarest moments of union between left and right for a common purpose, it transcended political and ideological barriers because it was simply a working-class movement.
For some reason that hit close to home and I found it extremely…
Review by Mike Swain ★★★½

When I was in college, I took a documentary filmmaking class where one of the assignments was to do a simple talking heads for-and-against short doc. Pick a topic, find one person who advocates and one who opposes, and thread their disagreement in some kind of interesting way. It speaks to my stunted generic college-stoner ambitions that I wanted to focus on legalizing marijuana, not because I had any novel take, or something interesting to highlight, but because...well, it was close.
I knew one friend-of-a-friend who could hold forth rather eloquently on the topic, so I asked her to participate; and for the other corner, I enlisted a close friend who said, "yea, sure, I can oppose it" (my documentary…
Review by Clint Worthington ★★★½

Absolutely brutal revisiting of the Gilet Jaunes protests in France and the outsized, violent police response to it. David Dufresne blows up smartphone footage and plays it in front of historians, politicians, policemen and protestors alike, to interrogate whether or not the police are justified in what they did.
It's a haunting look at the ways the state legitimizes violence, and whether we simply have to accept that they can do what they will with us when we step out of line. Even more stomach-turning than the shaky cell phone videos of beatings and dismemberments is the late-film footage of news organizations minimizing these actions and placing the blame on the protestors, a nauseating reminder that the privileged will do whatever they can to protect the status quo.
The film comes away with no easy answers, nor should it.
Review by Jake Pitre ★★★½

violence is very close to the notion of life.
Review by Arthur ★★★½

Analyse pertinente et très bien construite
Review by CLAPPERltd

TIFF 2020
The Monopoly of Violence might not be an easy watch, but it is undeniably needed. Well-crafted and fair, the film starts a dialogue that is rarely handled with such respect. It asks the audience to listen and value different perspectives which therefore will help the larger conversation become more relevant and impactful outside of the film itself.
- Carson Timar
Read the rest on CLAPPER

Recent reviews

Review by m a n o n ★★★★

I lived this in live when the strikes happened. Loved this documentary!
Review by OmarKajjaj ★★★½

I moved to Paris around the time Macron was elected and I was actually excited to see the direction the country was taking under the leadership of a young charismatic president.
Within the first month of his presidency, his first policy was to take 60 euros a year out of the pockets of students to balance the budget deficit.
I witnessed the first sparkles of what will be known as the yellow vests movement (le mouvement des gilets jaunes), one of the rarest moments of union between left and right for a common purpose, it transcended political and ideological barriers because it was simply a working-class movement.
For some reason that hit close to home and I found it extremely…
Review by Tobias Eggeby ★½

The doc mentions several branches of anarchism but pretty much let only one of them speak, anarcho capitalism/libertarianism, that to me should be sorted under liberalism rather than anarchism. Also where are the women in this doc?
As many american docs it's extremely US-centric. It's not a study of the state as a concept as much as the united states of America.
Also the point of the title, the monopoly of violence, is a very small part of the doc and the arguing for "free" market a way to large part.
And to make things worse, some of these dudes can't even get their facts straight.
I mean, sure, the dedicated prison might be a 18:th century thing but imprisonment existed way before that, even in the earlier societies. Also there were corporal punishment and death penalties pretty much before people documented stuff in a way that withstood time.
Also, what's with Americans and guns?
I'm not impressed.
Review by Sergey Nekrasov ★★½

Given the subject and the actual footage of police brutality, the film turned out to be surprisingly bland. Nerve lacks mainly due to the abundance of talking heads of different historians and sociologists who discuss the burning issue with the language of scientific symposium, citing Hannah Arendt and Max Weber. Situation improves each time when the actual victim or policemen appears in the studio, but unfortunately those cases are few and far between. The best part is when we see the footage when the police is outnumbered and the helmets and shields are of not much use for them anymore, and behind the visors of Robocops of Paris finally the scared human faces are actually seen. The best illustration that - monopolized or not - violence is crippling.
Review by cualquierfran ★★★½

pasa que hubieron tantos momentos en los que explotaba en llanto porque el trauma es tanto y tan grande que no lo comprendemos hasta que ya nos está ahogando.
me gustaría poder ver las imágenes y que sean cosas completamente ajenas pero es que son tan familiares y duelen tanto.
Review by sahrabm ★★★★

It was really interesting because I feel very concerned by questions of law and more broadly about politics. So this is a documentary focused on the events that occurred at the end of the last year with the movement of « gilets jaune ». It’s a movement witch raised several questions, including the use of violence : who is responsible for the use of violence ? Does using violence against demonstrators is legitimate, for examples.
I found the film very clever in the way that he opened and hollow the debate of police brutality. Illustrated by the fact that there is multitude of speakers such as philosophers, historians or journalists. It was fascinating because we see the testimonies of demonstrators, videos from…
Review by Elie_Bartin ★★★½

D'utilité publique par son dispositif qui force à voir les exactions commises sur notre territoire sur grand écran, Un pays qui se tient sage ne convainc toutefois pas pleinement. Certes, il pose des questions intéressantes et importantes, avec certains intervenants pertinents, mais il manque une vraie profondeur à tout cela qui fait que l'ensemble finit par lasser un peu. Néanmoins, la proposition est forte et se doit d'être vue, ne serait-ce que pour son intérêt cinématographique certain et pour étoffer notre regard, sans forcément prendre de position, sur ce qui se passe au sein du territoire.
Review by Arthur ★★★½

Analyse pertinente et très bien construite
Review by don_wizman ★★★★

Interroger les images : telle est la tâche ardue du penseur, du cinématographe, et, par extension, du citoyen. Telle est l'entreprise de Dufresne.
Le cinéma évolue, et la plus anodine vidéo peut devenir séquence du grand écran : on assiste au parrainage des images amateuristes par le cinéma, qui leur donne une valeur qu'elles n'avaient pas avant en leur faisant une place dans son spectacle.
Brutal et sans concession, ce patchwork d'images-témoins est fondamental.
Review by kiki2montparanasse ★★★½

Documentaire très intéressant mais présente certaines limites. Comment et pour quelles raisons précises pour lesquelles les « bavures » les violences policières sont omniprésentes dans le corps policier. Comment l’Etat en est-il venu à se privatiser ?
Bref... bon documentaire pour pouvoir ensuite poser un regard critique sur notre société et ce qu’il se passe en France.
Le montage n’est pas (a mon avis) bien fait dans le sens où le style prime sur l’information donnée dans le film.
Review by Clara 🍋 ★★★★

That was so much more intense than what I expected. I mean I knew it wouldn't be lovely and light but I didn't expect to feel that tense and scared and anxious while watching it. It's important, smart, and makes you think a lot. There are some very interesting discussions and analysis in it. More people need to watch it, think about it, talk about it.
Review by applausee ★★★★★

nécessaire!