French political documentary maker William Karel (Le monde selon Bush/The World According to Bush) hits an unexpected personal note with his portrait of an anti-terrorist judge’s daughter in La fille du juge (My Dad Is Into Terrorism, though the title literally means "The Judge’s Daughter"). Clémence Boulouque was still in primary school when her father became one of the Parisian judges investigating a wave of terrorist attacks in the 1980s, necessitating protection by bodyguards for himself and his family and personally carrying a gun with him at all times. He shot himself in the mouth with that gun in the winter of 1990, after becoming embroiled in a political-mediatic scandal, leaving a wife, 13-year-old Clémence and her brother behind. Karel’s film is not so much interested in a portrait of the judge or the judicio-political events surrounding his person as he is bent on examining what it means for a little child to be caught up in a whirlwind of events that very few of her age have witnessed. It makes for a riveting piece of documentary making, probing for humanity in a web of high politics, unequalled media attention and impossible judicial work.

 

Clémence arrived in New York in August 2001 to escape her situation at home, only to be confronted, on September 11, with more terrorism and death, prompting her to deal with her past by writing about her own experiences. The book that was subsequently published (called Mort d’un silence or “Death of a Silence”) forms the basis for Karel’s documentary and parts of it are read by French actress Elsa Zylberstein (La petite Jérusalem, Modigliani) in a first-person voice-over narration that guides the viewer through the story. Because the narration comes from a book and not from, for example, interviews with Clémence herself, the tone is certainly more literary and perhaps a bit aloof, but her words are so precise and well-thought through that they are nevertheless involving. An example of a typical reflection of Clémence is the fact that soon, with her 26th birthday, she will have lived as long without her father as with him, and as she grows older and further away from the time he was still alive, she will grow closer to him in age, until she will become his older sister, his mother, his grandmother.

Karel combines archive footage from televised journals and news magazines with private footage and photos from the Boulouque family and material shot specifically for this documentary, including scenes of Clémence in New York (it was her first visit to the city since she returned to France after having finished her book manuscript). Juggling his material, the director is able to paint a picture of the events that shaped the family dynamics and how these events influenced the young Clémence.

The French media became especially interested in Boulouque during what has been called the “Gordji Affair”, in which the judge had requested the Iranian translator Gordji to appear in his office as a witness. Gordji refused at first, locking himself in the Iranian embassy where he worked for several months before finally coming out to talk to Boulouque on his way to the airport just days after several French hostages were released, which prompted talk of a bargain deal on the part of the French with the terrorists, releasing Gordji in exchange for the hostages. Boulouque has always denied he wanted Gordji arrested, pointing to the fact he was called as a witness, but the French media saw things differently, considering Boulouque as a puppet of the French regime and portraying him as a judge-come-air ticket seller in satirical cartoons. “Aisle or window? Smoking or No Smoking?” the judge asks in his witness examination in one cartoon. Imagine recognizing your father in a similar portrait.

 

 

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