Le Couperet

Le Couperet
Costa-Gavras :: France :: 2004 :: 2h02

Set in a fictional France resembling our own, Bruno finds himself confronted with the cut-throat competition on the labour market in a take-all consumer society. Bruno, played brilliantly by José Garcia, literally takes out his competition for a position which he helps liberate in order to be reinstated into the active world. The violence is presented as inherent to the pornographic capitalist dream world, a bubble in which the lucky few breath. The lucky few being an Americanized European middle class living in a tree-lined suburbia with disorientated children watching violent movies and parents mimicking respectability in a Renault Espace. Bruno has lost all sense of morality and wants nothing more than to be an active player in society, one who can respect himself amongst the other men and provide for his family. Bruno's managerial schools would have taught him that it is only the bottom line which counts, all means can be used to get to the desired end. A practice which holds brutally in business pushing him out as it will to unethically get him back in the saddle. Whether or not relocations to the eastern European business paradise cause a scarcity of jobs in the west, or excessive consumer marketing cultures push people to extremes, you are presented here with a daring and masterfully made movie. Highly recommended.