LA QUESTION HUMAINE
HEARTBEAT DETECTOR |
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DIRECTOR
Nicolas Klotz
SCREENPLAY
Elisabeth Perceval.
Based on François Emmanuel’s novel
La question humaine.
CAST
Simon: Mathieu Amalric
Mathias Just: Michael Lonsdale
Karl Rose: Jean-Pierre Kalfon
Lucy Just: Édith Scob
Arie Neumann: Lou Castel
Louisa: Laetitia Spigarelli
Running time: 144’
Production: France, 2007
Rating: Not rated
Gauge: 35mm, DVD (color)
GENRE
Drama
DISTRIBUTOR
New Yorker Films
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“It's an unapologetic film
of ideas-perhaps the headiest of its kind to arrive on these
shores since Godard's ‘Notre Musique.’ But Klotz's
film more consciously echoes early Godard in the way it binds
its dense philosophizing to the spine of a pulpy crime fiction
(…) For two and a half hours, Klotz walks a perilous tightrope
between profundity and pretension without ever tipping into
the chasm. His film is filled with strange, discursive digressions…
knowledge and understanding raise more questions than they answer,
and the film ends not in closure, but in openness.“
Scott Foundas, Village Voice |
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Simon is a psychologist
in charge of human resources within a German multinational,
SC Farb. He deals with hiring new employees but also with lay-offs,
a task he conducts with rationality and efficiency. When managing
director Karl Rose asks him to look into, and draw up the psychological
portrait of, the company's general manager, Mathias Jüst,
Simon gradually uncovers the dark history of the company. His
investigation will lead to the discovery of SC Farb's shady
conduct during World War II and the involvement of its key figures
in the Holocaust. Simon, a rational individual with feet firmly
planted on the ground, will soon be overwhelmed by what he learns.
The past that he digs up, along with the discovery that he is
being manipulated, will have a deep impact on him, physically
and emotionally. He starts making connections between his role
in the company - laying off employees who are no longer useful
to the company, and the Holocaust, and he asks himself many
questions: is he today's equivalent of a fascist? Who are the
people he is 'discarding' in the name of business efficiency
and profit? With Heartbeat Detector, Nicolas Klotz
brings to the fore chilling questions about today's society
and the structures of modern big business.
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| PHOTO New
Yorker Films |
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