DMovies - Your platform for thought-provoking cinema

The Measure of a Man (La Loi du Marché)

The split allegiances of the ordinary man: in this new French movie, worker Thierry cannot decide whether to side with undignified coworkers and customers or to embrace the corporate values that earlier almost crushed his life

Late Italian filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini stated in an interview in 1974 that “Fascism . . . had not been capable of even scratching the soul of the Italian people; this new Fascism, armed with new means of communication and information . . . has not only scratched the soul of the Italian people but has lacerated, raped, and besmirched it forever.” The filmmaker and poet was obviously referring to consumerism, a phenomenon that imposes its own models and values and destroys thereby many aspects of society. That is exactly what happens to Thierry (Vincent Lindon), the main character in The Measure of a Man.

Thierry, a middle-aged labourer in France, has been unemployed for two years. He is trying to get back into the job market while doing his best to make his ends meet. He goes to meetings at the French equivalent of a job centre, only to find out how atrocious market laws are and how humiliating the process of getting back to work can be. He travels a long distance in order to sell his mobile home to a couple and gets stuck while negotiating. At 51, he begins to understand why stupid, shameless and shallow people make more money than him.

He then takes a job as a security guard in a big supermarket, a situation that will force him to face in a moral conflict. Will he be on the side of poor and exploited people, co-workers and customers, or will he embrace corporate values? He confronts an elderly man who steals meat and has no money and relatives; he watches on CCTV a cashier taking discount coupons for her own personal use; he takes part on the stupid parties for the senior workers. This is a laconic depiction of mankind.

Director and scriptwriter Stéphane Brizé (Mademoiselle Chambon, 2009) paints the screen with the colours of cinema verité – it is all very, very true and cruel. Lindon is simply superb and his performance granted him an award in Cannes 2015. The dehumanising effects of unemployment at first and then at the workplace later become evident in Thierry’s acts and words: it is a performance of restraint. Self-control, self-discipline, moderation, prudence in the name of family integrity. Thierry is also a father of a teenager with mental problems.

In the end, Thierry realises that a person’s dignity becomes the material for a squalid spectacle. French novelist André Malraux once wrote that “The attempt to force human beings to despise themselves is what I call hell”. The Measure of a Man is more than a comment on French society; it is a bald interpretation of our human condition.

Measure of a Man is out in cinemas. .


By Maysa Monção - 26-05-2016

Maysa Monção is a Brazilian writer, teacher, translator, editor and art performer who currently lives in London. She has a Masters Degree in Film Studies from Tor Vergata University in Rome, Italy, ...

DMovies Poll

Are the Oscars dirty enough for DMovies?

View Results

Loading ... Loading ...

Most Read

Forget Friday the 13th, Paranormal Activity and the [Read More...]
Just a few years back, finding a film [Read More...]
A lot of British people would rather forget [Read More...]
Pigs might fly. And so Brexit might happen. [Read More...]
Sexual diversity is at the very heart of [Read More...]
Films quotes are very powerful not just because [Read More...]

Read More

Toll (Pedágio)

Carolina Markowicz
2023

Victor Fraga - 30-09-2023

Road toll worker slips into a life of crime in order to pay for her son's gay conversion therapy, in this spectacularly dirty Brazilian piece of absurd realism - from Latin Horizons section of the 71st San Sebastian International Film Festival [Read More...]

Great Absence

Kei Chika-Ura
2023

Victor Fraga - 30-09-2023

A young man tries to make peace with the father who once abandoned him is now slowly succumbing to dementia - Japanese drama is in Competition at the 71st San Sebastian International Film Festival [Read More...]

Dance First

James Marsh
2023

Victor Fraga - 30-09-2023

Gabriel Byrne stars as Irish writer Samuel Beckett, in this concise yet very conventional and contrived biopic of a literary genius - the Official Competition of the 71st San Sebastian International Film Festival [Read More...]

Facebook Comment

Website Comments

One thought on “The Measure of a Man (La Loi du Marché)

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *