Last Weekend

It was a great weekend for film fans in Charlottesville. I was lucky enough to catch three of the films being shown in town: My Name is Albert Ayler, La Question Humaine, and Reves de Poussiere at OFFscreen on Sunday evening. All three were very interesting, but my favorite had to be La Question Humaine, directed by Nicolas Klotz and released in France in 2007. The film was adapted from a novel of the same title by Francois Emmaneulle and tells the story of a psychologist (played by the famous French actor Mathieu Amalric) employed in the human resource department of a large Franco-German chemical company. He is assigned to analyze the company's CEO after a series of strange complaints. His investigation takes him through a series of encounters, at work, at raves, and at home that eventually lead him to commit some unfortunate acts. By the end of the film, the viewer must question the mental health of this main character, who has by this point uncovered some frightening facts about the company's questionable links to the Nazi party. The final scenes are incredibly powerful and philosophically rich meditations on language and memory. Highly recommended.

For French speakers here is an interview with the director Klotz and lead actor Amalric. You can see the trailer in the preview post from last Thursday. Also, the onion's AV club has a nice review here.