An excellent Vincent Lindon is an executive who sees his principles and his family crumble in a very hard film by Stéphane Brizé, the conclusion of his trilogy about the inhumanity of industrial relations
How little the cinema talks about something that takes up most of our lives: work. If so, it usually focuses on the weakest link in the supply chain, the employee or the worker who is at risk of losing their job. There are exceptions, though, such as “The Good Boss,” where Fernando León used satire to portray a model of an ordinary businessman in Spain: the paternalistic tyrant.
Stéphane Brizé (Rennes, 1966) has spoken in his films about the world of work, starting from reality and preparing the script after interviews with the real protagonists of conflict. He always did it with the same actor, the great Vincent Lindon, who in ‘The Law of the Market’ (2015) played an unemployed man over 50 who found work in a precarious and unforgiving environment. The performance award in Cannes and a million viewers in France confirm the impact of the film. Three years later, Lindon was a unionist who refused to accept the inexorable closure of his factory and called for a strike in ‘At War’ (2018). So aggressive was the attitude of the workers as justification for the layoffs by the political and economic power.
‘A New World’, conclusion of the ‘Trilogy of Work’, makes Lindon a senior executive of an American multinational appliance company. He runs a factory in France and faces a plan to cut the workforce, which will result in an increased workload for those rescued. In tense meetings you have to deal with senior management and employees. Meanwhile, his life collapses. In the first scene, we see him negotiating the terms of the divorce with his wife (Sandrine Kiberlain) and their respective lawyers. We will soon find out that your son is suffering from a mental illness. It’s not that there’s no reconciliation, it’s that the protagonist is beginning to understand that his existence and the system he’s worked for for decades makes no sense.
Brizé and his co-writer, Olivier Gorce, spoke to executives who are finding it increasingly difficult to follow directions from the top. “They are no longer asked to think, only to follow orders,” he says. “We wanted to show the consequences of the work of those who are considered the first lieutenants of their companies, but who are actually people who find themselves between a rock and a hard place.”
Work as moral corruption, as a disease, as an antidote to love and calm, as a substitute for life. That’s what ‘A New World’ is all about, warning of the drift of an increasingly ruthless system. Many of the CEOs Brizé spoke to lost their jobs despite taking orders without question for years. They all had great intellectual and leadership qualities. They all worked in companies that belonged to international corporations and that prioritized dividends to their shareholders.
“They told us about their fear of not reaching the pinnacle of what was being asked of them,” the director says. “They were not born enforcers, but they felt they gradually became one, while at the same time losing touch with their personal and professional lives. Some were completely burned out, others were pushed aside by their bosses, and others resigned before exploding. They all told us that this inevitably had consequences for their families.”
‘A new world’ speaks of decency and courage, of integrity and humanity. All the burden falls on an extraordinary actor, who does not have to open his mouth to open his inner hell for us. Walking on the treadmill at the gym, behind the wheel of his Volvo or with his head down as shoppers saunter past his house, Vincent Lindon conveys the fatigue and suffering of a broken man, while Brizé makes interludes with baroque music that depicts the pain relieves he offers this film.
Source: La Verdad
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