Review: Violences des echanges en milieu tempere

I’ve not watched foreign movies in a long time, the last time I watched one was a Slovak movie at GSC Mid Valley last year, with Fiona, Zuzana and other AIESEC trainees. The funny thing about watching foreign movies is about watching the expressions in a language that you don’t understand, and if you count on the subtitles, you really miss out on the action.

The beauty of watching one is from trying to understand what they are trying to do, and actually the less talking, the simpler it is to understand. That should be the art of acting at it’s best.

So, I watched this movie below …

VIOLENCES DES ECHANGES EN MILIEU TEMPERE

As translated on the screen “Work hard, play hard”

Direct translation (courtesy of Google) “Violence of the exchanges in moderate medium”

Summary (courtesy of GSC cinemas)

Philippe (a fresh graduate) arrives from the provinces in Paris to take up a job in a large consulting firm. On the morning of his first day at work he meets Eva, a young solo mother. They quickly become involved.

He's enthusiastic about his first mission, which is to audit a small factory with view to a takeover by a large corporation - unbeknownst to the factory employees. Philippe's boss is impressed by his reports and hands him the responsibility of a new task: to select the staff who will be capable of adjusting to the factory's new organization. Henceforth, Philippe must convince himself and Eva of the validity of his work and confront the men and women who will lose their jobs in the takeover.

My take:

I think the movie started off slowly, but it also grows on you. It explores the dilemma of Philippe between doing his work as a process consultant versus his conscience that his result is ultimately to improve efficiency & reduce unnecessary workers in post merger. It interesting because for most fresh people, tend to have more conscience than people who’ve worked for sometime … as they say, it’s not personal, it’s work.

Hi dilemma as someone fresh is not just about work, but also his relationship with Eva, a single parent … and while it was good when it lasted, the closing hints that he’s moved on to a more ‘realistic’ relationship with someone else, possibly a more educated & fellow professional.

The movie is a casual take on adolescence in the working world, how it affects a person & how reality drives someone to change. Have a watch & see how much it reflects your true self.