La loi du marché (2015) Reviews

• excruciatingly realistic & grindingly slow story about the everyday indignities endured by ordinary people

  CineMuseFilms2016-07-06

  The docu-drama is the genre that brings you up close and personal to real life. Its hyper-realism can make you feel like a witness to a real-time situation, often with jittery hand-held cameras, minimalist acting and cluttered sets that recreate the existential ordinariness of everyday living. We find all of this in The Measure of a Man (2016), an outstanding docu-drama that is excruciatingly realistic. It is also a grindingly slow story that compels us to witness the everyday indignities endured by ordinary people who struggle through harsh economic times. Set in France, the story is told through the eyes of middle-aged and life-weary Thierry (Vincent Lindon) who lost his machinist job a year ago when his factory closed. The plot line is based on a series of vignettes where Thierry endures the indignities of a principled man who must work in an unprincipled world. Plot and technique converge as we are drawn into Thierry's world to feel his suppressed anger and to see how far he can be pushed. The employment agency forces him to undergo training that proves useless; he must participate in self-improvement seminars and endure the sneering insults of less experienced people; and the condescending remarks by bank staff and job interviewers belittle him without offering hope. With a wife and special-needs son to support he must consider selling cherished assets, but then lands a job as a megastore security guard and things look brighter. The store wants to increase profits and lay off older workers so he must police petty pilfering by shoppers and staff. One by one, he sees human misery being multiplied by actions he is forced to take. Without saying a word, we feel his disgust and his moral entrapment. This is an unusual film and one that many audiences will find difficult to watch. While all films try to reach us emotionally, this one deliberately makes the viewer feel uncomfortable and even agitated to the point where some may want to leave. The shaky camera often adopts a fixed viewpoint and stays there for what feels like a squirm-in-your-seat eternity. We are there alongside Thierry while he interrogates a youth, a pensioner and several staff, and are silent witnesses to their palpable fear. The film title speaks of the measure of a man, but this compelling film dramatically demonstrates that the measure of modern society is how it treats the dispossessed and disadvantaged.

• Gut-wrenching portrayal of the banal cruelty of modern employment

  andrewbunney2016-04-20

  This is a Mike Leigh/Ken Loach-style drama, great contemporary social realism, French style, and all the better for it. A middle-aged man's existence becomes precarious after he's laid-off from his skilled job. Transitioning via the unemployment industry to supermarket security guard is the challenge for our hero. His dialogue with petty bureaucracy is obviously the same in France as it is here. There is claustrophobia and frustration with the relentless, compassionless uselessness of the so-called support. Witnessing with him a check-out worker's send-off after a lifetime on the job is suitably excruciating. The young, new boss has the honour of fare-welling simple, loyal Gisele who always smiles and was never late in 32 years; a career trajectory from the check-out to the deli section. The little guy or gal, when he falls out of work, is screwed, especially if he's in his 50's. There are themes of the exploitation and degradation of working life and also of the demands of caring for a disabled dependent. The story evolves slowly, documentary style, long takes in naturalistic settings. We experience the frustrations and humiliations of the unemployment industry through his jobnetwork appointments and programs. Futlity is a theme. There are many lovely features and brilliant, understated acting mainly from Vincent Lindon who received a five-minute standing ovation at the Cannes premiere and went on to win the best actor prize both there and in the Cesar Awards. This is a story about personal principles in our times; a disturbing look at the banal cruelty of modern employment and the struggles and battles of life more generally. When Mike Leigh and Ken Loach have lost their mojo, director Stéphane Brizé picks up the baton for the prols and gives the audience a measured, low-key, steadily building drama with big pay-offs. The Measure of a Man is quite gut-wrenching and brilliant in its simultaneous simplicity and complexity. It should be compulsory viewing for all supermarket managers & Centrelink and Jobnet (Australia) employees. Let's Go To The Pictures, Three D Radio, Andrew Bunney

• Simple and effective

  germanotalamare2015-05-23

  I had the honor to watch the premiere of this beautiful film in Cannes. I am glad to see that there are still experienced directors that can make film like this one: relatively low budget, simple cinematography, a few but good actors, few locations but with a very good story telling. Stephane Brize' is able to tell his story in an entertaining way even if mainly using long uncut scenes and very simple camera setting. No shot and counter shot, none of the usual Hollywood techniques. The director take his time lingering to build tension and emotions. Everything is based on the skills of the actors, with witty dialogues and situations that recalls the sitcom but with a dramatic treatment. It's an intelligent critic to the French society. Every young filmmaker should watch and learn from this film.

• True life, sh...life

  searchanddestroy-12015-05-23

  When the Ken Loach's style encounters Dardenne's brothers' one. One more true, accurate, social movie, as real as you have the feeling to watch actual characters for actual events, the kind you may meet everyday around you. The fierce, ruthless, cruel face of the real world. The actors here are not actually ones, but authentic characters. The way of playing reminds me LE PASSE, I saw two years ago. It doesn't look like a film, I repeat. Vincent Lindon is perfect here, as terrific as usual for such a character. An unemployed guy who, just after losing his job, has to fight every day to survive, to struggle like a dog to help his wife and retarded son to make it in this jungle that life is. So, he eventually finds a job as a security guard in a large department store. For him, that will be a more deeply dive into the fierce ugliness of life. An outstanding feature that doesn't make you laugh.

• Job seeking vlogger couldn't have said any more

  PipAndSqueak2016-06-04

  This is less a 'drama' than a documentary of what happens to people when their already difficult lives are made worse by thoughtless organizations and stupid funding regimes. Thierry has been laid off from his factory job. Presumably, he has stuck this sort of mindless work because he has a disabled son who needs constant care. Thierry is doing everything he can to keep his family together whilst barely scraping together an income. Unemployment is made worse by the organisations who are supposed to be there to help him back to work. They send him on inappropriate training schemes wasting everyone's time and effort as there is no work to be got afterwards. After numerous humiliations Thierry gets himself a shop security job and finds he's forced into making judgements about others that are, in reality, in as dire straights as himself. We wonder at what point he will break, and what he will do when he breaks? Its not a good ending but then, this is all too real for far too many people.