A Girl's Tears (1980)

Overview

A cinema-verite approach to this mystery story about the death of a young girl in a village adds credence to the story itself, it is as though the audience were following along with a real investigation instead of simply watching a narrative unfold. An inspector and his police team arrive to find out why the young girl drowned -- under suspicious circumstances -- and start to work interviewing the villagers. Shown in close-up and individually on the screen, each witness contributes to a growing knowledge that the girl was sexually assaulted and beaten before she died, and the real mystery is why no one reacted to the horror. As the interviews continue, the inspector realizes it will not be easy to extract the whole truth from any of the guarded, close-mouthed villagers.