Le Capital (2012)
Directed by Costa-Gavras

Film Review

One of the inevitable consequences of the 2008 banking crisis was the veritable tsunami of books and films that came out in its wake, a molten hot venting of opprobrium and moral indignation that made the reaction to the Enron scandal look like a storm in a microscopic thimble.  With his left-leaning sympathies and obvious loathing for those who misuse power for their own ends (apparent in the films that make up the bulk of his impressive filmography) Costa-Gavras was bound to get in on the act, but rather than indulge in yet another po-faced round of banker-bashing he takes a more sardonic approach, inviting us to pity, rather than censure, the irresponsible greed merchants who go about the business of driving the world economy in the manner of a teenage joy-rider who has no concept of the word 'tomorrow'.  Costa-Gavras appears to be mellowing in his old age.

Interestingly, Le Capital was adapted from a novel (by Stéphane Osmont) that was published four years before the 2008 financial crisis.  As prophetic as it is scathing, the book (which takes its title from Karl Marx's famous treatise Das Kapital) offers some lurid insights into the world of high finance, which Costa-Gavras turns into bleak and sometimes flippant satire in his film.  Here, there is the same condemnatory voice of the director's previous politically engaged films - Z (1969), L'Aveu (1970), Missing (1982), Amen. (2002) - but the tone is noticeably different, more tongue-in-cheek and indulgent.  What Costa-Gavras appears to be attacking is not the banking industry per se, but the imperfect capitalist system that allows it to get with what it does.  The evil lies not in the bankers, who end up looking like a bunch of childish prostitute-chasing inadequates with serious monomania issues, but in the investors, who habitually insist on a much greater rate of return than the world economy can bear.

The social consequences of corporate greed is a theme that Costa-Gavras has already tackled (arguably far more imaginatively) in his pre-Credit Crunch black comedy Le Couperet (2005), in which a sacked executive creates his own job agency so that he can attract and kill all his rivals.  Le Capital doesn't have quite so fanciful a plot but it does take us to the limits of caricature, with banking bosses graphically portrayed as mutual back-stabbing students of Machiavelli, so absorbed in their ludicrous game of wealth acquisition that they have totally lost sight of what money is for.  It's hard to tell these endlessly game-playing saddos apart from those anaemic friendless adolescents who get glued to their xBox consoles, so caught up in the thrill of an empty pursuit that they have no life at all.  It's not even a career - just a pointless jumbling of numbers that has the side-effect of enriching one segment of the world's population whilst impoverishing the other (greater) segment.

Le Capital is presented as a slick, modern thriller but it is really an attempt to reinvent Jacobean tragedy as a Gallic black comedy (or possibly vice versa).  Several times in the course of the convoluted narrative, the central protagonist - admirably portrayed by Gad Elmaleh in his first major dramatic role - punctures the fourth wall and takes us into his confidence, in the manner of a Shakespearean aside.  There are shades of the Bard's greatest tragedies - Richard III, Macbeth and Hamlet - in the political scheming and psychological duels that make up most of the plot.  In his portrayal of the hard-to-fathom banker overlord Marc Tourneuil, Elmaleh has his work cut out trying to weave in the ruthlessness of the crookback villain, the inner conflict of the Scottish usurper and the vulnerability of the Danish prince.  And this is the main problem with the film: we haven't a clue what the central protagonist stands for, let alone what his aim is.  Is he the corrupted innocent or the cynical opportunist? We never know, and this is what makes the film such uncomfortable viewing - there are no moral certainties or easy conclusions.  In a world painted in stark black and white, Tourneuil remains frustratingly a fluctuating shade of grey.

Whereas it is pretty clear in Costa-Gavras's previous political films what the message is, in Le Capital we are left somewhat perplexed.  Is this merely a playful rant directed against the banking fraternity or is it something deeper - an invitation for us to look beyond the sideshow of greedy bankers and see where the real problems lie, in the shaky foundations on which our seemingly secure economic and social systems are based?  In his film, Costa-Gavras comes close to exonerating the vain and blinkered moneymen who came frighteningly close to crashing the entire world economy in 2008.  They are not red-eyed monsters who eat widows and orphans for breakfast, but mere children pathetically addicted to a peculiar form of gambling.  Who then are the ones we should revile, the ones who have allowed a whacking great casino to be erected at the heart of our economic system?  The answer pops into your head as soon as Le Capital has run its merry course.  It is us - we are the ones who help to spin the wheel in the game of virtual roulette that will one day ruin us all. Faites vos jeux, mesdames et messieurs.  Le jeu continue!

Film Synopsis

Marmande is the CEO of Phénix Bank, Europe's leading financial institution.  When he is diagnosed with testicular cancer, he immediately appoints a rank outsider, Marc Tourneuil, as his acting successor.  Tourneuil's appointment comes as a surprise to the board of Phénix - surely he is too young, too inexperienced, too gauche to take effective control of the bank?  But these are the very reasons why Marmande chose him - someone who can be easily controlled and manipulated until a more suitable long-term replacement can be found.  Tourneuil turns out to be far less malleable than Marmande had supposed and within days of taking up his new post he has instigated a mass programme of redundancies that shore up his position and send the bank's share price soaring.  And yet there are still many pitfalls ahead of him, and Tourneuil can never be sure who is on his side and who is plotting his downfall.  Dittmar Rigule, an American hedge fund manager, makes him an offer he can hardly refuse but before he knows it Tourneuil is drawn into an illegal scheme that will bring about a collapse of the Phénix share price and make it vulnerable to a hostile takeover.  Torn between his ambition and his conscience, Marc Tourneuil makes his move - but is it his salary or his soul that he intends to save...?