I am ashamed to say it has been many years that I have missed out on this great film. I have no excuses, but caught up with it I have. Bob Swaim may not count as a French director, but this is a French film to the core. Why ? It shows a real Paris and a lot of it unknown to tourists and above all it deals with the criminal world in Belleville, in the north of Paris. Here, like sharks the criminals and the police gnaw away at each other and very often in the film the brutal cruelty of both is indistinguishable. Nathalie Baye ( excellent ) is in love with her pimp played equally well by Philippe Leotard and their love story redeems a lot of the awful violence that surrounds them. The police are looking for a key criminal played by Maurice Ronet ( remember ' Lift to the Scaffold ' and ' Le Feu Follet.' ? ) and the means are often as dirty as the seedy world they search in. People are neither good or bad in this film and that is what makes it superb cinema. Plus the filming itself that was vivid, vital and miles ahead in its depiction of real surroundings than most. I will watch it often to remind myself that love is often faulty but true, and that we are all capable of the worst as well as the best. It deserves better recognition here than it has and in this near desert world of film mediocrity at the moment it should remind discerning viewers that the cinema is one of the greatest of arts. This is one example of what I call essential viewing.