Bruno Dumont

L’humanité

L’humanité

The transcendent second feature by Bruno Dumont probes the wonder and horror of the human condition through the story of a profoundly alienated police detective (the indelibly sad-eyed Emmanuel Schotté, winner of an upset best actor prize at Cannes for his first film performance) who, while investigating the murder of a young girl, experiences jolting, epiphanous moments of emotional and physical connection. Demonstrating Dumont’s deftness with nonactors and relentlessly frank depiction of bodies and sexuality, L’humanité is at once an idiosyncratic police procedural and a provocative exploration of the tension between humankind’s capacity for compassion and our base, sometimes barbarous animal instincts.

Film Info

  • France
  • 1999
  • 148 minutes
  • Color
  • 2.35:1
  • French
  • Spine #981

Director-Approved Special Edition Features

  • New 4K digital restoration, approved by director Bruno Dumont, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray
  • New interview with Dumont
  • Conversation between Dumont and critic Philippe Rouyer from 2014
  • Segment from a 2000 episode of the French television program Tendances featuring actress Séverine Caneele
  • Segment from a 1999 French television-news program featuring Dumont
  • Trailer
  • New English sub­title translation
  • PLUS: An essay by critic Nicholas Elliott

New cover by Vivienne Flesher

Purchase Options

Director-Approved Special Edition Features

  • New 4K digital restoration, approved by director Bruno Dumont, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray
  • New interview with Dumont
  • Conversation between Dumont and critic Philippe Rouyer from 2014
  • Segment from a 2000 episode of the French television program Tendances featuring actress Séverine Caneele
  • Segment from a 1999 French television-news program featuring Dumont
  • Trailer
  • New English sub­title translation
  • PLUS: An essay by critic Nicholas Elliott

New cover by Vivienne Flesher

L’humanité
Cast
Emmanuel Schotté
Pharaon De Winter
Séverine Caneele
Domino
Philippe Tullier
Joseph
Ghislain Ghesquière
Commandant
Ginette Allègre
Eliane
Credits
Director
Bruno Dumont
Written by
Bruno Dumont
Executive producer
Jean Bréhat
Executive producer
Rachid Bouchareb
Produced by
Muriel Merlin
Photographed by
Yves Cape
Sound by
Pierre Mertens
Art direction by
Marc-Philippe Guerig
Costumes by
Nathalie Raoul
Original music by
Richard Cuvillier
Makeup by
Férouz Zaafour
Editing by
Guy Lecorne
Sound editing by
Mathilde Muyard
Sound mix by
Jean-Pierre Laforce

Current

How Bruno Dumont’s Cinema Gives Flesh to Philosophy
How Bruno Dumont’s Cinema Gives Flesh to Philosophy

The French iconoclast explains how his background in industrial filmmaking helped him bring life to abstract ideas about the human condition.

L’humanité: Ordinary Human Behavior
L’humanité: Ordinary Human Behavior

In his idiosyncratic, award-winning second film, Bruno Dumont uses the story of an alienated police detective to investigate the most elemental aspects of human experience.

By Nicholas Elliott

Mark Jenkin’s Top 10
Mark Jenkin’s Top 10

The director of Enys Men celebrates the holy trinity of Bergman, Bresson, and Tarkovsky, and expresses his love for films that are narratively simple but thematically complex.

Carlos Reygadas’s Top 10
Carlos Reygadas’s Top 10

The director of Japón talks about his love for “filmmakers who struggle,” what he values in comedy, and movies that show us what it’s like to live with intensity.

Designing Dumont
Designing Dumont

Combining elements of her own paintings with an improvisatory Photoshop process, artist Vivienne Flesher captured the grim beauty of Bruno Dumont’s cinema for our releases of La vie de Jésus and L’humanité.