The astonishing Neither Judge nor Submissive returns to television

A documentary as fascinating as it is uncomfortable, which begins like an episode of Striptease and ends with a crazy sequence.

Released in 2018 in cinemas, the documentary Neither judge nor submissive will return this Thursday evening on France 4. Signed by the authors of the show Striptease and dedicated to the crazy daily life of Brussels judge Anne Gruwez, Neither judge nor submissive made a strong impression on us when it came out. Here is our review:

“The judge is funny. She drives an old 2CV, scolds a thug, explaining to him that, sorry, but this time she's going to have to put him in jail because you can't attack people repeatedly like that. She has fun with the cops by asking them to put the pimp in Brussels traffic, questions a prostitute about her best handjob techniques. The fanfare music, the cartoon credits, the. half-voyeur, half-rogue principle.

From the start, we know where we are going: Neither Judge nor submissive is an episode of Striptease extended over the duration of a film. The founding principles of the Belgian show are all there: the refusal of objectivity, the right for the authors to impose their omnipotence and to make this judge, these cops, this prostitute or these families immigrants dislocated all they want. With everything that we have always found this show as fascinating as it is uncomfortable, such as arbitrary editing or the right to break people.

And then, suddenly, in the last half hour, a stunning twist occurs. An atomic sequence. The judge finds herself faced with a young woman who has committed the irreparable. In one shot we fall into madness and the monstrous. And everything stops: the nice bullshit of the judge like the amused look of the documentarians. Stunned, as stunned as their heroine, they record without filter the terrible words of this mother. In fifteen minutes of logorrhea, reality took back its rights. Cinema and morality too. The device is dead, the judge stunned, the spectator upset. Everyone ends up naked, like in a real striptease.”
Gaël Golhen

Trailer for Neither judge nor submissive :

Chicken Fries, the new film Striptease: “When it’s impossible, it gets interesting”