It tells the story of a withdrawn police lieutenant investigating a rape and murder of a schoolgirl in rural France, his slow enquiries interspersed with everyday scenes of his quiet life.

In the far north of France, filmed in Bailleul, a girl of 11 has been raped and murdered as she walked to her parents' remote farm from the school bus.

At the weekend his neighbour Domino, who is sympathetic to his deeply affected state, asks him to join her and her lover Joseph, a bus driver.

The final shot shows Pharaon sitting in a chair in his office at the police station, staring out the window, with handcuffs visibly shackling his wrists.

[3] David Sterritt wrote for the Christian Science Monitor "Dumont's cinematic style is aggressively physical and philosophical at the same time.