If you have worked in a hierarchical work environment, you will almost certainly identify with the themes covered; if you haven't, you will be treated to an intimate examination of the complexities of the work environment. The specific situation examined revolves around people working in a small French manufacturing plant, but the themes treated are universally applicable to any workplace. The three basic conflicts are between management and labor (that age-old battle in any capitalist society), between generations, and between stability and adapting to a changing world.
Franck is the son of man who has worked in the factory for some thirty years. As the movie starts Franck is returning from being in business school in Paris and he is given a position in the personnel department of his father's factory. Franck rises in the ranks and his father is proud of his success. But serious conflicts arise between Franck and his management and between Franck and his father.
I have the feeling that the movie is meant to condemn the way the workers are treated, but I think it details in an almost documentary fashion the inner workings that obtain in almost any workplace. Management is out to worry about the bottom line and the survival of the company and the workers are trying to do their jobs and take home a paycheck. Of course this sets up an inevitable conflict-- both management and labor want as big a share of the pie as they can get, but in that contest management usually has the upper hand. But the success of the company depends on the workers doing their jobs, so attention must be paid to their working conditions.
Franck's father's job is running a machine to stamp out metal parts and he is little more than a machine himself; he points out that he can make up to 700 identical parts an hour. On the surface this job looks horribly tedious, but the father seems quite content to run his machine, do his job, and go home. Of course such a job is ripe for automation, and Franck's father is slated for a layoff. I found the beauty of the movie to be in what appeared to me to be an evenhanded and realistic presentation of both sides of the management vs. labor dispute. I could not bring myself to view the company boss as an evil ogre, nor could I pity Franck's father.
It was hard for me to sympathize with Franck. In a brutal and heartrending scene between him and his father he expressed his shame for his father and his father's position, a shame that he claimed to have been passed down to him. I felt that Franck should have been proud of his father, a man who had provided him with a home environment to foster his success. And I did not see Franck's father as an unhappy man.
This movie is relevant to current (2012) politics in the United States where charges of class warfare abound. The movie explores what I think are inevitable themes that occur in a capitalist society. The themes touched on are so common and deeply significant that it is puzzling why they are so rarely treated in film. What is offered instead is a diet of comic book super heroes, vampires, murder mysteries, fantasies, and so forth.
Franck is the son of man who has worked in the factory for some thirty years. As the movie starts Franck is returning from being in business school in Paris and he is given a position in the personnel department of his father's factory. Franck rises in the ranks and his father is proud of his success. But serious conflicts arise between Franck and his management and between Franck and his father.
I have the feeling that the movie is meant to condemn the way the workers are treated, but I think it details in an almost documentary fashion the inner workings that obtain in almost any workplace. Management is out to worry about the bottom line and the survival of the company and the workers are trying to do their jobs and take home a paycheck. Of course this sets up an inevitable conflict-- both management and labor want as big a share of the pie as they can get, but in that contest management usually has the upper hand. But the success of the company depends on the workers doing their jobs, so attention must be paid to their working conditions.
Franck's father's job is running a machine to stamp out metal parts and he is little more than a machine himself; he points out that he can make up to 700 identical parts an hour. On the surface this job looks horribly tedious, but the father seems quite content to run his machine, do his job, and go home. Of course such a job is ripe for automation, and Franck's father is slated for a layoff. I found the beauty of the movie to be in what appeared to me to be an evenhanded and realistic presentation of both sides of the management vs. labor dispute. I could not bring myself to view the company boss as an evil ogre, nor could I pity Franck's father.
It was hard for me to sympathize with Franck. In a brutal and heartrending scene between him and his father he expressed his shame for his father and his father's position, a shame that he claimed to have been passed down to him. I felt that Franck should have been proud of his father, a man who had provided him with a home environment to foster his success. And I did not see Franck's father as an unhappy man.
This movie is relevant to current (2012) politics in the United States where charges of class warfare abound. The movie explores what I think are inevitable themes that occur in a capitalist society. The themes touched on are so common and deeply significant that it is puzzling why they are so rarely treated in film. What is offered instead is a diet of comic book super heroes, vampires, murder mysteries, fantasies, and so forth.