Mubi Monday: Two Days, One Night (2014)

Marion Cotillard plays Sandra, a factory worker who finds out that she has effectively been voted into unemployment when her colleagues are given a choice between her staying with the company and them all receiving their bonuses. There's one last chance for her to keep her job, having convinced a manager that she would like to talk to the others who work alongside her and have another vote, a secret ballot, after the weekend. But can she make a strong enough case to sway people who may be relying on that income boost?

Co-written and co-directed by the Dardenne brothers (Jean-Pierre and Luc), Two Days, One Night is a film that manages to strike just the right tone throughout, navigating through an unhappy main premise without turning into something completely disheartening and miserable. The camera mostly stays alongside Cotillard, but it's an intimate shooting style, as opposed to an intrusive and uncomfortable one. There are many long takes, and no dramatic music underscoring things.

Cotillard is as excellent as she usually is in the lead role, a woman trying to fight her way beyond desperate sadness to make her stand with dignity. Her character knows that she is asking a lot of the people she works with, and she doesn't attack those who cannot be converted to her cause, but she keeps trying to persuade everyone who will be eligible to take part in the second vote. Everyone in the supporting cast is just as good, but the main secondary players I will praise are Fabrizio Rongione (playing Sandra's husband, Manu) and Catherine Salée (a friend named Juliette). Both act rightfully concerned, and both seem to have more faith than Sandra for much of the runtime.

What may be most interesting to viewers of Two Days, One Night is the deliberate way in which Sandra doesn't view her colleagues as The Enemy. There are some encounters that go a lot worse than others, and at least one person she tries to talk with is a reactionary asshat, but it's made clear that the ones to blame are those who made the company decision. It's the people who are unaffected by this big decision looking on (metaphorically, although sometimes literally) as the workers are made to wrestle amongst themselves about a decisions that wasn't ever necessary.

A saddening reminder that employers hold all of the power nowadays, and that people are often at the whim of others for reasons outwith their control, this is an effective lesson to those who want to take it in. From business to governments, the methodology has been the same for some time now. Create a bad situation, leave the workers to try and make the situation better for themselves, and reap the benefits while many people look around to blame anyone but the actual culprits

Very much worth your time though. After all, knowledge is power.

8/10

https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews

The Kid With A Bike (2011)

French-language cinema has, for me, taken a number of twists and turns over the years. Many French-language films would appear on UK TV in the 1980s, some marked with that infamous "red triangle" (signifying adult content at one time), and they all seemed to address very adult subject matter in a very adult, and unflinching, way. A lot of the movies that I saw seemed to feature a lot of sex, but maybe that's because my young brain would seek out any film that sounded as if it would show me those bits and pieces that I was always curious about at that young age. Stop sniggering, I still have a healthy curiosity now, but I'm sure that many people can still remember that strange time when hormones are raging and everything seems so strange and exotic. Yet, the French-language cinema of today is well known to many as a fertile ground for fine modern horror and when they try to do something more akin to the adult output of yesteryear it ends up feeling false and horribly cliched. Like American Translation. Thankfully, they can still do some fine films and The Kid With A Bike is one of them. Which is Belgian. But a Belgian film in the French language.

Funnily enough, it's all about a kid named Cyril (played by Thomas Doret). With a bike (played by a bike). Cyril is an angry young boy, stuck in a youth facility after being placed there by his father (Jeremie Renier). He refuses to take in the harsh reality of the situation when his father's phone number is no longer in service and he is told that he has moved so he runs away to see for himself. The flat is empty and his bicycle is no longer there, apparently sold by his father. While trying to evade the people who want him back in their care, Cyril clings on to a woman named Samantha (Cecile De France). Samantha, obviously moved by the plight of the boy, manages to get his bike back for him and Cyril asks her if she will take him on weekends. She agrees, but her kind and patient nature may not be enough to help a young boy so full of rage and confusion.

Written and directed by the Dardenne brothers (Jean-Pierre and Luc), The Kid With A Bike is one of those movies that may resonate more with people who can identify with one or more of the main characters. This may sound like stating something obvious, something that applies to every movie even, but I really think that some films have an honesty at their core that can be best appreciated by those who have been in the shoes of the main character. Other people can also enjoy the movie, and the universal elements that it contains, but some people will get a bit more out of it. I'm not going to go into detail, it's a movie review and not a diary of my turbulent teenage years, but I'd certainly experienced a few of the highs and lows that Cyril goes through and most of the movie rang true for me.

The script and direction is very good, with a minor failing being the rushed way in which Cyril falls in with a local lad named Wes (Egon Di Mateo), but the film is really taken to a higher level thanks to the performances of all involved. Young Thomas Doret does great work as the young boy who can think of no other way to react to his situation apart from lashing out (the character walks a fine line between being a complete brat and being someone with all defences fully up), Cecile De France is lovely and believable as the woman who takes it upon herself to try to help save a life and even Jeremy Renier is great as the father who just can't manage looking after a child any more. Interestingly, the film doesn't make the absent father into a completely loathsome figure, but prefers to show him as someone who just isn't strong enough to raise his son alone. He truly thinks that he's acting in the best interests of all involved, but he doesn't see the consequences of his actions.

This may not be the first choice for a movie evening, but it's definitely a rewarding one and it's a film that beautifully captures a range of different emotions without ever feeling too heavy-handed or manipulative, in my view. I hope that it ends up being seen by people who get as much out of it as I did.

8/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Kid-With-Bike-DVD/dp/B007ISZRBY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1363569593&sr=8-1