Rien de Personnel Mathias Gokalp

Crisis. For months, TV, radios and newspapers have had nothing to say but this six-letter word. Sony, Caterpillar, Continental, Molex: if the name of the concerned company varies, the script of restructuring repeats itself identically. At the end of it all, an often sinister end awaits the employees: massive layoffs. Refusing to be sacrificed, some workers resist, going even so far as their boss’ confinement. Perhaps there’s nothing personal here, but it is definitely a matter of gut reactions: a question of human dignity. As an echo of this current socio-economic plight, Mathias Gokalp signs Rien de personnel, the opening film of the Critics’ Week.

Slightly Kafka-esque, this behind-closed-doors black farce follows the confrontation of the manager and the employees of the Muller company, a fictitious pharmaceutical firm. During a freezing winter night, it is between the walls of a luxurious private mansion that they are all about to take part in a strange kind of work social event. Strange, because what on the earth is the goal of this refined reception which turns quickly into a collective evaluation where face-to-face oral tests are disrupted by the rumour of an imminent acquisition? Who is out to skin other people alive, and at which price? Can the freedom of speech, courage and impertinence of some free electrons and outcasts compete with the capitalist coldness and cynicism of the decision makers? At the end of the day, which behaviour should be chosen: to play the game, proud of an Agnes B. suit like Bruno, the coach and actor played by Jean-Pierre Darroussin, to unionize like Gilles (Denis Podalydès), or to be delighted in advance by an early and cushy retirement in one’s “garden and shack”? And what about self-esteem amongst all that? And love?

Carried by equally talented actors and actresses (from Pascal Greggory, just perfect as an icy blue-eyed, bitchy manager, to Bouli Lanners, very touching, especially during his drunken version of Johnny Hallyday’s hit, Je te promets), Rien de personnel is an astonishing first film. The viewpoint of Mathias Gokalp is at the same time lucid and surrealist, his Alain Resnais-like kaleidoscopic narration is intelligently developed. And it is undoubtedly not by chance if this existentialist tragicomedy starts with quasi clinical shots of eviscerated bodies and closes itself on scenes of reconciliation, where the main characters speak open-heartedly. How to switch from the greed for power (Vanitas) to the honest joy of being together.

Emilie Padellec