Saint Omer (2022) on Netflix
Laurence Coly, a Senegalese immigrant, is tried in Saint-Omer over the death of her 15-month-old daughter, left on a beach at Berck. Rama, a pregnant novelist from Paris, attends the trial.
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- Netflix4.0/5
- IMDb6.7/106,466 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes94%
Trailer
Plot summary
Rama is a literature professor and novelist in Paris. Four months pregnant, she travels to Saint-Omer to sit in the criminal court where Laurence Coly is on trial. Coly, a graduate student who came from Senegal, is accused in the death of her 15-month-old daughter, who was left on a beach at Berck and drowned by the tide. Rama intends to turn the case into a modern version of the Greek myth of Medea. Her own relationship is mixed-race and her mother is a Senegalese immigrant, and the two of them have a complicated bond. Listening to the account of Coly's life and of the isolation Coly faced from her family and in French society, Rama grows anxious about her pregnancy and her own life.
Cast
- Adama Diallo Tambaas Seynabou
- Mariam Diopas Khady
- Dado Diopas Tening
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Saint Omer (2022)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Saint Omer is based on the 2016 French court case of Fabienne Kabou, who was convicted of killing her daughter. Director Alice Diop followed the case, recognized Kabou's Senegalese features in news footage as matching her own family heritage, and attended the trial, becoming obsessed with it.
- Guslagie Malanda, who played the role based on Fabienne Kabou, found staying in character so taxing that she had nightmares for a year, and director Alice Diop fainted on set when shooting wrapped.
- Like her pregnant protagonist Rama, director Alice Diop was pregnant with her first child while attending the Fabienne Kabou trial; she went out of intuition and only decided to make a film after the trial ended.
- Saint Omer was Alice Diop's first narrative feature after a career in documentaries; she turned to fiction because cameras were not allowed in the courtroom and she wanted to recreate the experience of listening to another woman's story.
