Serious films are usually either works of art or works of artiness.
Compare, for instance, The Straight Story with almost anything by the Coen brothers. But Dumont spends two hours and twenty-eight minutes wandering between humane inquiry and arty attitudes. But after two viewings I enter some reservations. The setting, as in Dumont's first film, is his birthplace, Bailleul, a dull town in northwest France. The film ends with the arrest of the criminal.