I really struggled with the plot outline for this movie - not because of its complications, but because in summarising it, the premise can sound like a vigilante thriller.
It is, of a kind.
Instead of using a gun, Seyo uses every trick she can think of to turn the law into her weapon.
It is a tired sentiment to say a film is ‘for our times’, but Prosecution is an especially resonant and urgent example.
With the rise of AdF in Germany as an electoral force,
What makes it more effective is how unvarnished it is in exploring how white supremacy is upheld.
We are introduced to Seyo prosecuting a case that lets a neo-Nazi off the hook. After the case we see in her car, trying to decompress. She is self-aware, but she is not willing - until she is targeted - to offer any challenge to the system.
The film draws on the nuances of racism and privilege that are not specific to the German context - multiple characters, including a black woman who is a first generation immigrant who has had to endure repeated attacks from the far right, point out her hypocrisy in contrast with how use approached other hate crimes before the one directed at herself.
One of the ironies of the film is that Kim’s quest is echoed by ultra-right wingers who are trying to subvert the institutions from the inside.
Subvert might be too strong - they appear to be using its inherent nod and attempts toward neutrality to capture it.
And the film milks most of its obstacles and tension from this underlying conflict - it always feels like Seyo is running late in a race that has already started. The far right has the advantage, and they have no compunction about showing themselves - in one horrifying sequence, Seyo is arrested by police officers who then subject her to a pointless detention.
Scenes like this highlight one of the key conflicts of the film: the contradiction of Seyo’s quest - she is both seeking to uphold an institution while also fighting against it to do what is right.
One of the film’s strengths is how it escalates the tension without conventional setpieces.
There are a few deliberate jolts purely from transitions, jolting the viewer deeper into the character’s headspace and escalating danger (one of the biggest jumps is a cut to our heroine at a target range).
It also makes sly use of screen space - the film builds such an atmosphere of claustrophobia and paranoia that there are scenes where I was expecting something to happen.
One of the most unexpectedly suspenseful moments in the film is during a late scene where Seyo takes down the wall-length mind map she has pasted across her floor-to -ceiling window.
The filmmakers have done such a good job of grounding us in this context, and Seyo’s paranoia, that danger appears to be omnipresent.
In the lead role, Chen Emilie Yan is the quietly intense but human centre of this pressure cooker of a movie.
Seyo is a fascinating character, defined by her intelligence and un-relenting drive.
When she is attacked, Seyo immediately goes into action - calling in the police and ordering forensics. She even puts on a body suit so she does not contaminate the crime scene.
Seyo does not want to dwell or reflect - she wants to get to the bottom of the situation.
Every time Seyo faces an obstacle, she does not stop - she just changes tactics. Seyo’s power move is not violence, but the law - exemplified when she lines up German law books in prep for her disciplinary hearing.
On paper, there is a danger Seyo could have become a cipher, or come across as a legal Terminator. Yan gives Seyo a vulnerability, a simmering sense of the fear and trauma that she is still dealing with. Her work is her way of processing this pain.
Yan also gives Seyo an underlying sense of outrage - how could this have happened to her, a state prosecutor? That subtext is an important part of the film’s underlying message about the insidiousness of white supremacy, and prevents the movie from turning into something more reductive and easily resolved.
The film seems to recognise its proximity to a more generic version of the story - and it plays with imagery associated with vigilante or superhero stories.
Seyo gets a reinforced black car, she gets a firearm licence when railing the neo-Nazis, and when she spies on her opposition, she wears dark clothes and a mask.
IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THE FILM, I WOULD ADVISE NOT READING FURTHER.
One expects this to lead to some kind of violent catharsis but it does not.
Seyo’s tenacity and intelligence win out, but her victory is not framed as total - the sheer effort Seyo has to put into defeating the neo-Nazis, compared with the relative ease of her enemies, seems fairly pointed.
And while the film ends with most of the neo-Nazis free, the final scene offers some sense of how the tables have begun to turn.
We end on a montage, intercutting between the neo-Nazis at home, each reacting to the sound of a car engine revving outside. The sequence climaxes with the man (Lasse Klene) who knocked Seyo off her bike, setting the story in motion.
Seyo slowly cruises past him, just slow enough so that he - and the viewer - can register her dead-eyed unblinking stare. She may not have put them in prison, but she has made her fear theirs - now they will fear the world outside.
She ends the film unbowed - and unleashed.
I left the film wondering if Seyo would get her own series of adventures, using and breaking the law to protect the innocent from neo-Nazis.
It probably would not happen, but the character, and the film around her, are so strong I would not mind returning to her onto another case.
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