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Cantet's films show the drama in everyday angst.

Tuesday Feb 22, 2005.     By Joel Wicklund

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Escapism sometimes gets an unfairly bad rap from film critics who, over-exposed to Hollywood formulas, slam disposable but otherwise inoffensive products from the dream factory that might be perfectly fine diversions to an overworked "Joe Average" who only sees a movie or two a month. Still, it's fair to criticize the general public for too often eagerly consuming dumbed-down hackwork in the name of "getting away from it all." Sometimes the best movies to recharge your batteries are not the ones that avoid the real world, but the ones that confront it head on.

In this regard, French writer-director Laurent Cantet is one of the most vital filmmakers around. With his first three feature-length films, he announced himself as a major talent with a rare ability to put his finger on the pulse of the anxieties of contemporary society.

Cantet's "The Sanguinaires" (1997) was produced as part of the "2000 Seen by…" series of short features commissioned by French television, in which directors from around the globe used the anticipation of the 2000 millennium celebration as a backdrop for drama. "The Sanguinaires" is about an overworked travel agent who plans a getaway for friends and family to ring in the New Year away from the media-saturated hype of the occasion.

Francois (Frederic Pierrot) thinks he has found the perfect spot on a small island off the coast of Corsica, but things do not go well. The residence is damp and unheated and the group is entirely dependent on the young caretaker Stephane (Jalil Lespert), who makes Francois very uncomfortable: especially when he pulls a gun out at the dinner table. This may sound like the start of a thriller, but Stephane is no gangster. He's just a kid as wound up in his own aimlessness as Francois is trapped by his need to maintain control.

Francois' growing disillusionment with the situation (and the modern world in general) is aggravated by Stephane's passive-aggressive challenges to his leadership, flirtations with his wife, and acceptance by his friends and children. Their relationship becomes one of competing masculine authority, creating an air thick with tension. Cantet plays out the conflict with a palpable uneasiness, building to an unsettling, ambiguous conclusion. Aided by the uniformly fine, naturalistic acting of the cast, he delivers a definitive portrait of a holiday gone wrong. There are no extras to speak of on Wellspring's DVD release, but the image quality is crisp and the subtitles are clear and readable.

Lespert, so impressive in "The Sanguinaires" (his feature debut), would reunite with Cantet for "Human Resources" (1999). Instead of the bad boy, here he plays the good son. Graduating from college with a degree in management, Franck gets a promising internship in the corporate offices of the factory where his father has labored for thirty years. His dad (Jean-Claude Vallod) is proud of his son's achievements, but his pride masks a class-consciousness that has made him a willing victim in his own exploitation as a worker.

Despite the awkwardness of being groomed as one of his father's superiors, Franck is excited at the prospect of building bridges between management and labor. Like Franck, we initially see the management as the more reasonable side, especially when compared to the abrasive personality of a loud-mouthed Communist union representative.

But Franck learns that pleasing personalities can be deceiving when his own research is manipulated to justify company firings. Betrayed by his superiors, he joins the union activists and organizes a strike. Rather than a feel-good "Norma Rae" portrayal of a workers' uprising, Cantet shows the complexities of the dispute with a sympathetic view of workers, like Franck's father, reluctant to challenge the status quo.

Lespert is superb, but the movie's climactic moment belongs to Vallod, a non-professional in his first movie. When his angry son vents his frustrations with his father, dumping his parts tray on the factory floor, the look of the father fighting to hold back a tidal wave of long-suppressed emotions is simply devastating. Image's DVD of "Human Resources" offers only the French theatrical trailer and a brief director's bio as extras, but the image quality and subtitles are excellent.

"Time Out" (2001) fuses Cantet's concerns with work and domestic dissatisfaction, telling the story of Vincent (played with understated perfection by Aurelien Recoing), who, after losing his high-paying white-collar job, does not tell his family about his dismissal. Instead, he drifts aimlessly throughout his days, enjoying the meditative satisfaction of driving to nowhere in particular. He calls from the road, claiming to be busy at work, and when his former job no longer provides an adequate cover story, he simply invents a new one: a U.N. staff position with prestige and a touch of intrigue.

Going months without work, money becomes an issue. Rather than coming clean, he digs a deeper hole to continue his charade, scamming his father and some friends with bogus investment deals. When a mysterious stranger catches on to his act, Vincent becomes an unwilling partner in his counterfeit merchandise business. Cantet builds the tension of Vincent's dilemma with patience and restraint, until you can almost feel it in your stomach as the truth comes out and consequences loom.

Cantet based his film on a true story (which mirrors the recent Lori Hacking tragedy) about a Frenchman who passed himself off as a doctor for years while never actually working. With his lies about to be exposed, he murdered his wife, children and parents, and attempted suicide before being brought to justice. There is an undeniable fascination to that story and its real-life horrors are certainly the stuff of riveting cinema.

But not the kind of cinema Cantet makes. The true story did get more closely adapted in another French film called "The Adversary," but in "Time Out" Cantet did something most film executives would find unimaginable. He strips the story of its juiciest, headline material for his fictional version, eliminating the murders entirely. His concern is not the psychosis that would lead a humiliated man to kill, but the emptiness of a working life that might lead an average man to even design such a charade.

The film's final scene, dry and uneventful at a plot level, is utterly haunting because it suggests a death not of the body, but of the spirit. Available on a Miramax DVD with fine visual clarity and readable subtitles (a trailer is the only extra), "Time Out," like Cantet's previous work, shows how a serious contemplation of the burdens and confines of everyday life can be, in its own way, as invigorating as any high-speed chase picture or special effects spectacular.

Films featured in DVDetours™ may be difficult to find at many video stores but are widely available from some of the online rental services, such as Netflix, Green Cine, QwikFliks and Blockbuster Online. Inventories vary from company to company and DVDetours has no connection to any of these services. © 2005