Director/cowriter Alice Diop's riveting drama, "Saint Omer" unfolds mostly in a French courtroom where Laurence Coly (Guslagie Malanda), a Senegalese woman, is on trial for murdering her 15-month-old daughter. (Saint Omer is the region where the trial is held.) Attending the proceedings is Rama (Kayije Kagame), a professor and novelist who is writing about the case, which is based on the real-life trial of Fabienne Kabou.
Diop's film investigates what made Laurence kill her child; the film uses the trial to address immigrant lives, as well as issues of power, race and gender. It also emphasizes how the educated Laurence ended up in her situation. She attributes her actions to sorcery, which is debated about in the courtroom. Rama silently observes the trial, but it has impact on her; her own life is not unlike Laurence's; Rama also has a complicated relationship with her mother.
