“Not only clever in what it shows us of our society under constant scrutiny… also smart in what its dramatic progression tells us about the growing ruthlessness of the criminal underworld”

The combination of a technical revolution in movie making (the arrival of digital cameras, small, inexpensive, with long-lasting tapes and batteries) and a film that knew how to turn it into an aesthetic rejuvenation of the first-person perspective, pseudo-documentary found footage work (The Blair Witch Project), inspired a lot of people, who for the most part remained in the same horror genre. Therefore, almost thirty years later, the use of this formula can still surprise and captivate us when it comes from a different and unexpected place, both artistically and geographically – a thriller masquerading as a journalistic investigation on cocaine smugglers in the slums and on the docks of Marseilles, France. La Moula (French slang for money, as in “the dough”) is written, directed and performed by Jérôme Pierrat, who is indeed a freelance reporter specialized in drug related stories. He mixes true stories accumulated throughout his career into a fiction that feels as real as it gets, down to its actors who – except for the director himself, not as convincing in front of the camera as he is behind it – are all amazing discoveries, a collection of faces and attitudes that makes the stuff of great crime stories.

The character played by Pierrat, who bears the same first name as him, infiltrates a small crew (of five – a perfect number for group scenes, as well as separate ones that build up dissensions within the ranks) waiting for the arrival of a container full of cocaine. But the cops are already on to them, a fact that fuels one of the great ideas of the film: to keep finding new ways to generate found footage material. In order to do this, all Pierrat has to do is to make good use of our modern times fascination with video recording, which in turn feeds the obsession for monitoring and spying on our friends or foes alike. In La Moula, on one hand Jérôme records – with or without their knowledge – the comings and goings of the drug dealers, and on the other side the criminals have eyes on the cops trying to arrest them. Miniature cameras hidden in the police’s stakeout places and cars allow them to level the game (since Jérôme provides information to the police), and allow the film to show us both sides of the cat-and-mouse game between cops and criminals. This culminates in a stunning alternate editing of one of the film’s climaxes, a car chase for which we have – without any inconsistency, story wise – footage covering both sides of the action.

La Moula is not only clever in what it shows us of our society under constant scrutiny, where everyone films and everyone watches the films made by strangers and relatives alike. It is also smart in what its dramatic progression tells us about the growing ruthlessness of the criminal underworld, most particularly in Marseilles with the rise of a group known as the DZ Mafia, whose violent crimes and cold-blooded assassinations have equivalents all over the world. The final act of the movie, where the tension, greed and treason boiling up for the longest part of the story all explode in a carnage of betrayals, executions and vengeance, becomes the terrifying origin story of such a criminal group, which has no more interest in any kind of rules or honor but only believes in mayhem, thuggery and letting the guns speak instead of the men holding them. There, the horror origin of found footage movies comes to the surface, and brings La Moula to a ruthless ending reminiscent of the nihilism of some of the best representatives of the genre, like The Blair Witch Project or Cloverfield.