AllMovie

For three months director and photographer Raymond Depardon (co-founder of the Gamma News Agency) lived in the police precincts of the fifth arrondissement in Paris with his camera at the ready and became so much a part of the woodwork that he was able to film some extraordinary moments in the ordinary routines of policework. At times gripping and emotional, or alternately very funny, incidents such as a couple living in a storage room without windows, the investigation of a rape case, the handling of a badly-injured drug addict, or valiant attempts to get a senile, vocal old lady to the hospital, help round out a picture of police work that belies Hollywood-style cops-and-robbers flicks.