Vincent Lindon plays an unemployed family man desperate to find a job in THE MEASURE OF A MAN
THE MEASURE OF A MAN (LA LOI DU MARCHÉ) (Stéphane Brizé, 2015)
Metrograph, 7 Ludlow St. between Canal & Hester Sts., 212-660-0312
Lincoln Plaza Cinema, 1886 Broadway at 63rd St., 212-757-2280
Opens Friday, April 15
www.kinolorber.com5
“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy,” the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. famously said. In Stéphane Brizé’s The Measure of a Man, Vincent Lindon excels as a husband and father who is trying his best to survive in a changing world, fraught with challenge and controversy, that has seemingly turned its back on him. In an extraordinary performance embodying the calm before a storm that never comes, Lindon plays Thierry Taugourdeau, a working-class man who has been out of a job since the factory where he toiled for more than twenty years closed twenty months ago. He meets with job counselors, takes classes, interviews over Skype, and joins his fellow laid-off colleagues to figure out what to do next, but it is hard for him to have to start over in his fifties while trying to support his wife (Karine De Mirbeck) and take care of a teenage son who has cerebral palsy, played by Matthieu Schaller, who does have the neurological disorder. When Thierry finally does find employment, it’s not exactly a dream job, but he attempts to soldier on even when he is asked to do things that are against his moral and ethical fiber. “We all get to choose,” he says when his fellow former factory workers talk about taking action against the company that laid them off. “In my case, if only for my mental health, I prefer to draw a line and move on. Does that make me a coward?”
The third film teaming Lindon and Brizé (following Mademoiselle Chambon and A Few Hours of Spring), The Measure of a Man has a poignant, realistic feel, unfolding in highly believable, disheartening scenes that are sometimes frustratingly slow, with Brizé and cowriter Olivier Gorce guiding viewers through the procedural machinations as Thierry tries to get his life back on track. You’ll often wish Thierry did more — that he prepared better for an interview, or more carefully chose his words when speaking to a counselor about his son’s future — but part of the point is that he’s doing the best he can in a difficult situation, and he’s only equipped for so much. The vast majority of the cast is made up of nonprofessional actors who really work in the banks and megamarts shown in the film, which is shot with a sometimes shaky handheld camera by cinematographer Eric Dumont and edited by Anne Klotz, both of whom come from the documentary world. Despite some plot meandering, the film is worth seeing for Lindon’s marvelously paced performance, which earned him Best Actor at Cannes and the Césars. A kind of French neorealist film for the twenty-first century, The Measure of a Man opens April 15 at Lincoln Plaza and Metrograph, with Lindon in person at the former after the 7:05 show and the latter after the 7:30 screening. In conjunction with the new release, Metrograph is also presenting “Four Films Starring Vincent Lindon,” which concludes with Claire Denis’s Bastards on April 16 at 3:00.
On May 23, 2013, President Barack Obama gave a speech at the National Defense University at Fort McNair in which he discussed America’s controversial drone program, saying, “Before any strike is taken, there must be near-certainty that no civilians will be killed or injured — the highest standard we can set.” Sonia Kennebeck’s shattering documentary, National Bird, strongly disputes that claim and adds more accusations as three former military personnel talk about what was really going on behind the scenes. “It’s a secret program, and what that means is that I just can’t go shouting off the hilltops, telling the public what it is,” says Lisa, a former technical sergeant on the drone surveillance system. (The documentary does not use the three main subjects’ last names.) “What I can tell you is that to me, one person who worked within this massive thing, it’s frightening.” Heather, a former drone imagery analyst, has become a massage therapist to deal with the effects of PTSD and anxiety and sleep disorders. “In learning to heal other people, maybe I could heal myself as well,” she says as she tries to come to terms with the many Afghani men women, and children, both military targets and innocent civilians, who died from bombs she dropped from drones. “I can say the drone program is wrong because I don’t know how many people I’ve killed,” she adds. And Daniel, a former signals intelligence analyst and currently a private contractor, carefully explains, “There’s no doubt in my mind that if I said the wrong thing or gave away the wrong kind of information about what I was doing that I wouldn’t be safe from prosecution of any kind.” Kennebeck also speaks with General Stanley McChrystal, who apologized for a 2010 drone attack that killed twenty-three civilians; some of the survivors of that fatal attack; and lawyer Jesselyn Radack, the founder of the Whistleblower and Source Protection Program (WHISPeR) at ExposeFacts, who has represented Edward Snowden and other whistleblowers in addition to Heather, Daniel, and Lisa.
