“Another world”: Vincent Lindon captivating in the costume of a leader at the end of his rope
DR
CRITIQUE — A successful director in a globalized group, Philippe Lemesle no longer knows how to respond to the crazy injunctions of his management. Yesterday we wanted him to be a leader, today we want him to be an executive. Philippe and his wife separate, a love sacrificed on the altar of work.
Philippe Lemesle (Vincent Lindon) plays a leader adrift. Ordered to fire 58 people - while the multinational Elsonn on which he depends is making juicy profits - he is looking for an escape route to save his employees on an industrial site of 500 people.
The collateral damage is considerable. His wife (Sandrine Kiberlain, ex-partner in life until 2003) accuses him of living in hell, she begins divorce proceedings. The first sequence shows the couple with their lawyers, unable to negotiate the financial details of their separation. They still love each other.
We immediately plunge into the intensity of a drama whose fatal outcome we can guess. There is the war between Russia and Ukraine and there is the economic war, a pernicious war which is not new, but still relevant.
Presented at the Venice Film Festival in 2021 (where it did not receive any prize), “Another World” is the third film on the business world directed by Stéphane Brizé, faithful to his co-writer Olivier Gorce and to his favorite interpreter Vincent Lindon, once again overwhelmingly authentic.
We will not talk about a completed trilogy, because the director has not said his last word on the hardness of work, a theme rarely treated in cinema. His inspiration, he says, comes from his encounters from film to film leading to new reflections, these reflections leading to a new subject.
In “The Law of the Market” (2015), an unemployed fifty-year-old accepts a position as a security guard in a supermarket and must ward off pickpockets and employees. Vincent Lindon then won the César for best actor during the 41st ceremony after being nominated five times, without success. The world of cinema, too, is cruel…
In “At War” (2018), a union leader opposes the closure of a factory with 1,100 employees based in Agen. Politicians and the Élysée are powerless to save jobs in the face of an intransigent German leader who has shamelessly swallowed up French aid.
With “Another world », the film presents itself less like a documentary than the previous two. But “real people from the company” have been cast and are playing a role. They work in a factory that manufactures spare parts for the household appliances sector. They really look the part and the realism of the scenes hits the screen. We find there in particular Didier Bille, a former HR director who published “DRH, the grinding machine” and gave birth to the #BalancetonDRH movement.
A leader at the end of his rope
Vincent Lindon in the office of an industrial site in Elsonn< /em>
After portraying the unemployed and the trade unionist, Vincent Lindon goes to the other side of the mirror. Stéphane Brizé shows us the director of a provincial factory at the end of his rope. He is no longer capable of accepting what is asked of him, even though what is asked of him is unacceptable.
The camera focuses on Philippe Lesmesle, this alone man, consumed by anxiety. His mental health and physical balance are in danger.
A good little soldier of capitalism, he conscientiously ties his tie in the morning. In his office, he displays false authority. He has already made social plans, he no longer believes in them. He is no longer the man who thought he would save 500 jobs by sacrificing 58 people.
The spring is broken, he continues meetings with his managers and appointments you at the Paris headquarters of the France department. He swallows pill after pill, runs on a treadmill. In the evening, he is glued to his computer, a sandwich in hand. Like a hunted animal, he seems to be suffocating, condemned to carry out orders.
“The multiplicity of axes in certain scenes reflects the feeling of encirclement, of confinement of the character. Problems come from everywhere, he has no respite like a man at sea in a boat pierced on all sides, who tries to prevent the water from rushing in through all the cracks in the walls”, explains Vincent Brizé during of an interview intended for the press.
One last burst of optimism
Philippe thinks he has found an alternative solution: eliminate executive bonuses for France, to make the required savings and thus avoid layoffs.
The “president France” of the group is played by the journalist Marie Drucker, for the first time in the cinema. She is perfect as an icy leader who speaks Newspeak with her five site directors, all in an ejection seat. She has the confidence of being on the victorious side of globalization. On the starting blocks, she is aiming for the European presidency… if her mission goes well. Forced to present the alternative project, she remains cautious and does not take responsibility for it.
By videoconference, the American big boss first judges the proposal to be creative, intelligent, then violently rejects it. He explains that shareholders above all expect managers to demonstrate their “capacity to downsize”. The horrible expression was released! “Even I have a boss that I’m accountable to. This boss is Wall Street. ” All is said. It is the law of the market. Recurring theme in Brizé's work with, this time, the spotlight focused on a senior executive victim of an inhumane system dominated by financial markets.
A Broken Family Life
For the occasion, Sandrine Kiberlain left her pretty blonde curls floating on her shoulders. A tight bun, it offers the unvarnished face of a wife devastated by suffering. At 50 years old, Anne Lemesle, mother of two grown children, sacrificed everything on the altar of her husband's career. She is afraid of her future as a single woman.
She arranges to meet her future ex-husband in a parking lot. We forget that Vincent and Sandrine are two great actors who shared a slice of life, as their acting is so fair and sensitive. No doubt they drew on the strengths of their past intimacy to deliver such a performance.
With Stéphane Brézé, the decors are minimalist. All his attention is focused on the protagonists, their emotions. When potential buyers visit the house, we do not see any room in the common living space. Nothing, absolutely nothing. The camera is focused on Philippe's face, locked in painful silence.
The son lost his temper. He threatened a teacher with a compass. It missed only this ! At the hospital, the young man played by Anthony Bajon seems to have taken on his father's obsessions. He labors over figures to calculate the duration of the journey for his parents to come to him. Whose fault is it ?
A few days later, he announced that he had Mark Zuckerberg himself on the phone who promised him a job at Facebook. Until then, he must pass his exams at a business school. He dreams of joining the world of high tech, GAFAM. Another world, far from his father's nerdy and thankless “field” job, responsible for an industrial site in the provinces.
Why is this film called “Another World” ? Is it nostalgia for a world before where a certain form of paternalism in family businesses guaranteed job stability ? Philippe who reconnects with his inner world and his own truth ? The future world fantasized by his son ? The new world supposed to come following the Covid-19 crisis ? The director offered a first response in “En war “. It's up to everyone to bring their own interpretation to this moment, at the beginning of 2022.
Last sequence: Philippe, Anne and their son walk together in a field of flowers. It’s the comfort of nature far from the brutal corporate world. Nature is faithful to the living world.
Camille Rocailleux accompanies the narration with string music and a lyrical voice that elevates the souls of the brave who are on the ground. The film ends with Anne Sylvestre's superb song “Les gens qui doutes”.
This fiction is nourished by around twenty testimonies from senior executives that Stéphane Brizé has took the trouble to meet before shooting. They worked in the mechanical industry, metallurgy, banking, advertising, insurance, cosmetics. The director relies on solid, realistic material, without artifice. This allows him to describe another form of proletariat, one that affects leaders who, at a point in their career, no longer play the game.
But will you? -there are still candidates to take positions of responsibility in companies ? That’s another story…
The “Jean” tax Valjean” for the super rich
We know that Vincent Lindon is a committed actor. All his choices in the cinema really hold up. Each time, he defends a cause and gives us a sensitive, human interpretation that leads to reflection.
In May 2020, in the midst of a health crisis, he published an article in Mediapart in which he criticized government choices: confinement considered a medieval practice, the crisis of hospital, the drop in the APL by five euros, the sale of large companies like Alstom…
In exceptional times, exceptional contribution. Vincent Lindon proposed a contribution called “Jean Valjean” in homage to Victor Hugo, the author of Les Misérables who worked in his time to help the poorest. This exceptional contribution would be financed by French assets holding more than 10 million euros, through a progressive tax of 1 to 5%, with an exemption for the first 10 million euros.
According to the economists that the actor took care to consult, this contribution would represent 36 to 37 billion euros which would be distributed to some 21.4 million households too poor to be subject to income tax.
“We build our lives on what we give,” notes Vincent Lindon in an interview to promote the film. Having a bigger car, an extra house, doesn't help much. To have a little more, we do a lot of harm to many, many…”
Another world, a film by Stéphane Brizé, 1h47, in theaters since February 16, 2022
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