Film Review
Denys Granier-Deferre, son of the distinguished French filmmaker Pierre
Granier-Deferre, made his directing debut with this caustic satire
which is just as relevant today as it was when the film first came out
in 1982, at a time of galloping unemployment in France. Jean
Poiret and Michel Piccoli head a mouth-watering cast that includes
rising star Daniel Auteuil, newcomer Tchéky Karyo and
established talent Marie Laforêt. Despite such a promising
cast, however, the film's uneven tempo and lacklustre screenplay
prevent it from making the impact it deserves, given the topicality of
its subject matter. The film was not a great success and after a
few further misfires Granier-Deferre migrated to French television,
where he has spent the bulk of his career, working on shows such as
Navarro (1989-90) and
Maigret (2000), and a spate of
generally watchable TV movies.
The most memorable part of
Que les
gros salaires lèvent le doigt! is the final sequence in
which a ruthless executive (Poiret at his best) enacts an ingenious,
but cruel, method to reduce the size of his management team, by getting
them to play musical chairs. It is a crude but effective metaphor
for the way in which big business treats its employees, as if they were
children or cattle. Jean Poiret's portrayal of the hard-hearted
boss is exquisitely true-to-life, and it is only in one fleeting moment that the
character is allowed to let the mask slip and show the tortured soul
beneath. You have to be tough, and ever so slightly psychopathic, to
succeed in business. The
other notable performance is supplied by Michel Piccoli who plays an
equally opaque character, a Mephistophelean anarchic outsider who has a
dubious relationship with Daniel Auteuil (well, they share a bunk bed)
and somehow always manages to get the upper hand, even over someone as
seemingly invulnerable as Poiret's granite-hearted CEO.
Mathias Gokalp's 2009 film
Rien de personnel
covers the same ground, but with more insight and a far more vicious satirical edge.
© James Travers 2013
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Film Synopsis
André Joeuf, the head of an insurance company, invites his staff
to spend a relaxing weekend at his house in the country.
Authoritarian and cynical, Joeuf easily manages to instil fear in his
employees, who suspect there may be an ulterior motive to this
seemingly friendly gesture. Indeed there is. Joeuf has a
number of redundancies to make, but he hasn't yet made up his mind who
is to go...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.