Weekly Archive Film Reviews

By Howard Schumann

This weekly column is dedicated to reviews of classic films, independent films, studio films, and reviews of films you probably never even heard of. Feedback is appreciated.

September 24, 2004

Human Resources   (1999 / Rated NR)

Directed by Laurent Cantet

"You're not fired.  You can stay.  You're too young, too cheap to be unprofitable." -- Franck Verdeau

Laurent Cantet's first film, Human Resources, shows the dehumanizing effect of mechanical labor on the relationship between a father and his son in rural France. The film has a strong political message but never feels sterile or preachy; rather it is a deeply felt human drama about class mobility. Jalil Lespert, the only professional actor in the cast, is Franck Verdeau, a young, handsome intern who works for the same company in which his father (Jean-Claude Vallod) has toiled for thirty years. Mr. Verdeau is a heavy-set taciturn individual who operates an automatic welding device that forces him to stand on his feet all day, bent over his machine and proudly claims that he can churn out 700 parts per hour. A member of the old school who does not believe in upsetting the bosses, the father is more compliant than most workers who still operate within the system but express their misgivings in union activity.

Franck has just returned home from school in Paris. Eager to seize upon the opportunity presented to him through his father's sacrifice, he seeks to impress management and launch his career by assessing the validity of instituting a 35-hour workweek. Although he has made a good first impression on his shrewd boss (Lucien Longueville), he soon comes into conflict with union leaders who are fearful that reducing the amount of hours will lead to automation and loss of jobs. Torn between his professional obligations and his sympathies for the workers, Franck naively proposes a referendum of the workers on the issue. This plays into the hands of management seeking to drive a wedge between the workers and their union, led by firebrand activist, Danielle Arnoux (Danielle Melador).

Arnoux, a real-life left-wing union activist, is an aggressive and uncompromising leader who does not hesitate to let management know exactly where she stands. When more layoffs seem to be forecast including that of his own father, Franck must choose sides between the militants and the father who made his job and career possible. Mr. Verdeau is opposed to the union and cannot see any benefit from a staggered workweek that would mean increased leisure. Their final confrontation about the father's passivity brings to the surface resentments about his father's social class that have been repressed for many years.

Human Resources is shot inside an actual factory, creating an authenticity furthered by its cast of actual factory employees. I found myself deeply involved with the characters. In tackling an issue that Hollywood has stayed miles away from, Cantet has made us aware of the daily drudgery of millions of people around the world for whom compromise and submission is a way of life. The film never loses his focus, striking a balance between social relevance and a character study of deeply conflicted individuals whose work is reflected in their self-image. Cantet said in an interview, "The title Human Resources is a reaction against the cynicism of that expression. A human being is administered the same way you would administer stocks or capital. I wanted to play on that double meaning and go beyond coded administrative lingo in order to talk about an actual human's resources." He has succeeded impressively.

Film Grade: A-

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September 17, 2004

Bus 174   (2002 / 120 Mins. / Rated R)

Directed by Jose Padilha

"It is no use killing street kids. There will always be more of them" - 17-year old at the Sao Martinho shelter

Brazil has approximately seven million children working and living on the streets of its cities, finding street life an acceptable alternative to abuse and poverty at home. On the streets, children do whatever it takes to survive including stealing, drugs, and often murder and most end up in juvenile detention centers or in prisons where their antisocial behavior is reinforced. In his powerful documentary, Bus 174, Jose Padilha depicts one of the most publicized media events of 2000, the hijacking of a city bus in a wealthy part of Rio by a former street kid, Sandro do Nacimento, igniting a standoff with the police and a media circus that lasted for hours on live TV.

The film begins with aerial shots of the crowded city while the homeless talk about the reasons they ended up on the streets. The camera then zooms in to a solitary bus surrounded by police. Due to the failure of the Brazilian police to cordon off the area, the crime scene swarmed with cameramen, journalists, police, and passersby, adding to a scene of chaos and confusion. As the drama begins to unfold, we see Sandro holding one hostage by the neck, walking up and down the bus as if not knowing what to do. At first, he seems uncertain, wrapping a towel around his face to hide from the camera and making unusual demands from the police such as a small sum of money, a hand grenade, and a bus driver. Things become more desperate when one of the female hostages writes in lipstick on the windshield "He is going to kill us all at 6:00. Help us." but the police do nothing except to stand around. Police said later that the presence of the live TV cameras inhibited them from taking aggressive measures to end the ordeal.

Using original footage from Global TV and interviews with former hostages, friends and relatives of the hijacker, sociologists, and police who participated in the standoff, Padilha focuses not only on the events as they took place but on the circumstances that may have triggered it. Padilha said in an interview, "There was a lot of press coverage, but it was cloudy, it wasn't complete. It was focused on the police, and on the political side of the issue. I felt like I was missing something, I was missing the hijacker." What he finds does not justify Sandro's actions, but makes them more comprehensible. Padilha reveals that Sandro, at age 6, witnessed his mother being stabbed to death in a robbery. Unable to come to grips emotionally with the tragedy, he became a street kid in the Copacabana area. By the time of the hijacking, Sandro had been in prisons and juvenile detention centers where, according to Padilha, inmates are regularly brutalized. In 1993, he was involved in an incident in front of the Candelaria Church where he often slept in which plainclothes policemen intentionally gunned down eight street children, many who were his friends, an incident Sandro recalls emotionally when shouting at the police from inside the bus.

The film also reveals the connection many of the hostages felt for their tormentor, though deeply afraid for their lives. Some felt that they were participating in a made for TV movie because of the times Sandro would tell them to pretend that they were in danger, although he yells at the police that "this ain't no action movie but some serious shit". Though Padilha retains his objectivity throughout, he uses the hijacking to expose the weaknesses in Brazil's society that make incidents like this possible. "We treat those kids as though they are invisible," he says. "They're always trying to get your attention, to get your money. And they realized they could get your attention through violence, because violence attracts the media." Bus 174 attracts our attention immediately and the tension is palpable until its moving conclusion. Like the recent City of God, Bus 174 does not provide any solutions but shines some light on a problem many would prefer to keep hidden, perhaps in the process making the invisible a little less so.

Film Grade: A-

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July 30, 2004

Home Before Dark   (1958 / 136 Mins. / Rated NR)

Directed by Mervyn LeRoy

Charlotte Bronn (Jean Simmons), the wife of a college professor (Dan O'Herlihy), has been released from a State Mental Hospital only to return to the same environment that led to her breakdown. Adapted by Robert and Eileen Bassing from Eileen's novel of the same name and nominated for a Golden Globe in three categories, Mervyn LeRoy's 1958 masterpiece Home Before Dark is a devastating yet remarkably liberating exploration of a woman's struggle to achieve mental health. I first saw this film many years ago and I never forgot the towering performance of Jean Simmons or the film's shattering emotional truth -- that some people are simply incapable of showing compassion to those who are vulnerable. On a bootleg copy taped from television, I was able to revisit it again this week and it flooded my mind with memories of those days of turmoil.

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July 23, 2004

Man on the Train   (2002 / Rated R)

Directed by Patrice Leconte

Patrice Leconte's Man on the Train (L'homme Du Train) is a slow-paced character study of two unlikely friends who envy the other's way of life. Manesquier, brilliantly portrayed by French film star Jean Rochefort, is a loquacious ex-poetry teacher and Milan, (French rock n' roll star Johnny Hallyday) is a thief who regrets not having lived a more respectable life. Based on the screenplay by Claude Klotz, the film has its amusing and thoughtful moments, but I found the relationship implausible and the dialogue "literary" and forced.

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