Thierry is 51 and he’s been unemployed for 20 months. Soon after he finally finds a job as a security guard at a big-box chain, he is faced with solving a situation that is in conflict with his conscience. Vincent Lindon, who is the only professional actor in a film by Stéphane Brizé that could pass as a documentary, took Best Actor at the recent Cannes festival.
Thierry has been unemployed since they closed down the company where he worked as a manual labourer. Over the course of twenty months he listened to all kinds of advice, paid for several requalification courses and went for a series of interviews – all to no avail. He has no intention of relying on state handouts like some of his former co-workers; he wants to get back into a job so he can provide for his wife and disabled son. Most of all, he doesn’t want to be part of that stratum of society that feels inferior to everyone else. In the end he manages to find work as a security guard in a shopping mall. All he has to do is watch, observe and monitor what’s going on. But he’s gone through too much humiliation himself to want to subject others to the same degradation. Faced with a pensioner he catches stealing a pack of meat, he stutters out the stock phrases he’s had to memorise, but it plays on his conscience. Is it really the measure of a man to submit to the law of the market? Vincent Lindon, the only professional actor in this uncompromising social drama, took Best Actor at the recent Cannes festival.
Eva Zaoralová (2012)
93 min / Color, DCP
Director Stéphane Brizé
/ Screenplay Stéphane Brizé, Olivier Gorce
/ Dir. of Photography Éric Dumont
/ Editor Anne Klotz
/ Art Director Valérie Saradjian A.D.C
/ Producer Christophe Rossignon, Philip Boëffard
/ Production Nord-Ouest Films
/ Coproduction ARTE France Cinéma
/ Cast Vincent Lindon, Karin de Mirbeck, Matthieu Schaller, Yves Ory
/ Sales mk2 Films
Stéphane Brizé (b. 1966, Rennes, France) is a screenwriter, director and actor. He worked as a technician in television, studied acting and began directing for the theatre. In 1993 he made the short film Blue Damage (Bleu dommage), which was followed by the medium-length L’oeil qui traîne (1996) and, in 1999, by his feature film debut Hometown Blue (Le bleu des villes). His filmography also includes Not Here to Be Loved (Je ne suis pas là pour être aimé, 2005), Among Adults (Entre adultes, 2006), Mademoiselle Chambon (2009 – César for Best Adapted Screenplay) and A Few Hours of Spring (Quelques heures de printemps, 2012). His latest film The Measure of a Man garnered Vincent Lindon the Best Actor Award at this year’s Cannes IFF.
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