De bon matin (2011)
Directed by Jean-Marc Moutout

Film Review

A loose remake of Marcel Carné's classic Le Jour se lève (1939), De bon matin offers not only an intricately crafted character study, of a man who is driven to kill by events beyond his control, but also a sobering portrait of a society that has completely lost sight of what is important in life amid the mindless pursuit of wealth.  As in his debut feature Violence des échanges en milieu tempéré (2003), director Jean-Marc Moutout delivers an austere modern fable set within the cruel confines of the profit-focused corporate world that is as timely as it is compelling.  De bon matin can so easily be read as a metaphor for all that is fundamentally wrong with raw capitalism, a sour indictment of the profit-before-all mentality that drove the entire world economy into the abyss in 2008 and which still prevails, a demonic spirit that no power on Earth can exorcise, whatever havoc it wreaks.

Whilst the storyline has an obvious overlap with that of Joel Schumacher's Falling Down (1993), Moutout is much more concerned with showing the inner turmoil that leads his anti-hero to commit an atrocious and seemingly inexplicable act of violence.  Once the shock of the double killing has been delivered, within the first five minutes of the film, what follows is a series of nested flashbacks which gradually reveal to us the motives and the circumstances that led inexorably to the tragic denouement.  We are compelled to identify with the central protagonist, Paul, as the fragments of his shattered life are drawn together in those final moments of reflection before he pulls the gun on himself.

In a remarkable performance, perhaps the finest of his career, Jean-Pierre Darroussin gives Paul such presence and authenticity that watching his descent into hell feels like watching the grimmest fly-on-the-wall documentary.  Paul is by no means a hero.  He is a weak, ordinary career professional who, for most of his life, played the part of the corporate lacky without the slightest qualm, so that he could enjoy a comfortable life.  It is only when he runs up against Alain Fisher, his new boss, that he begins to evaluate his life and see what is wrong with the world around him.  He makes half-hearted and ultimately futile attempts to redeem himself but none of this can wash away the poison that is slowly devouring his soul.  

Aware he lacks his superiors' ruthlessness, Paul begins to see himself as a victim, and this is where the pent-up resentment finally becomes too much to bear.  So hideously true-to-life is Xavier Beauvois's portrayal of Fisher that we grow to see his killing not as a senseless act of violence but as a timely, well-deserved execution.  Fisher epitomises all that is rotten with the capitalist system, a vampiric fiend that has no notion of human value and exists only to generate money for his shareholders, heedless of the wider costs to society.  How easy it is to equate this monster with the faceless corporate monoliths that now dominate the world of business, seemingly with scant regard for their social obligations.

Yannick Renier's character Fabrice is strikingly similar to the one that his younger brother Jérémie played in Violence des échanges en milieu tempéré - an idealistic young man who apparently has no qualms about selling out to his corporate bosses.  We can readily see that Fabrice is the man that Paul was at the start of his career, and perhaps it is the recognition of this that first makes Paul aware of his failure.  It is not Fisher that sends him spinning out of control, but the sight of another young man being corrupted, as he himself was, so it is not Fisher he grows to loath, but an entire concept of the business world that he now sees as savage and immoral.  It is too late for Faust to recover his soul, but he can give Mephistopheles a good kicking as he makes his way down to Hell.

Using a muted palette, which consists mostly of metallic greys, Jean-Marc Moutout plunges us into a world that is relentlessly cold and loveless, starkly evocative of the protagonist's sterile, colourless existence.  There are glimpses of personal happiness, fleeting moments of release in the company of his family and friends, but overwhelming the mood is depressing, and we can easily engage with Paul's mounting despair and resentment as the walls of the corporate machine he is trapped in slowly begin to fold in on him.  No murder can ever be justified, but so intensely do we come to identify with the protagonist that in the end we are forced to see some justice in the brutal crime he is ultimately driven to.  Paul's crime is not a mindless act of revenge, but a desperate attempt to hit back at a system that is unequivocally diseased and dehumanising.

Film Synopsis

One Monday morning, Paul Wertret arrives at the bank where he works, just as he does any other day.  But shortly after his arrival at 8 o'clock he takes out a gun and shoots dead two of his superiors.  He then hides himself away in his office.  As he waits for justice to run its course, Paul reflects on the events that have driven a seemingly ordinary man with no previous history of violence to commit such an atrocious act...