Heartbeat Detector

Star Review

Graeme Hobbs finds Klotz's comparison between Nazism and 21st century company culture a fascinating piece of work.

The in-house psychologist of a large company is called on to investigate the distracted behaviour of its CEO. As he does so, going deeper into the company’s archives and the personal histories of its burdened executives, he discovers how the poison of the past seeps into the present. Specifically, he discovers links through language, and how neutral, technical language – evaluation criteria, restructuring plans, optimum solutions – finds its insidious way into people’s flesh and blood. The point the film makes is that this doesn’t only happen in times of war and persecution. It happens now.

Though set in a corporate world – all cool blues and greens, suits and handshakes – La Question Humaine (its original French title) is infused with an atmosphere of film noir, and its flawed characters have compromised motivations in a murky, unredeemed world. The stencilled numbers on the wall behind the opening credits and the smoking chimneys clearly delineated against the sky hint at the fuller story.

Graeme Hobbs on 7th October 2008

View all 228 of Graeme Hobbs’s reviews

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Film Description

A thriller in which Mathieu Amalric plays an in-house corporate psychologist who is asked to investigate the erratic behaviour of the company CEO. His investigations take him under the skin of the company and its neutral language into a world of dark transgressions. Acclaimed as one of the most ambitious films of recent French cinema, this is an important film that links present with past in a disquieting manner.

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DVD Extras

• Les Amants Cinema: Feature Documentary by Helena Klotz (66mins)
• Trailer.

Film Details

Cast

Lou Castel, Edith Scob, Mathieu Amalric, Michael Lonsdale

Technical Details