[CRITICAL] CORPORATE

For his first feature film, Corporate, Nicolas Silhol deconstructs brilliantly the mechanics of the system of the suffering at work.

CORPORATE refers to a news alas dramatic : not a week without learning of the suicide to the work of employees in a company or employees in a hospital. Who is to blame ? Who is responsible ? This is the topic that has chosen to deal with Nicolas Silhol, of which this is the first feature-length film. Met at Bordeaux, he affirmed that ” its intention is not to offer the viewer a simple observation, cold and frozen situation, but to show the course a copy of a heroine “. Inspired with his co-writer Nicolas Fleureau of the wave of suicides that occurred in France Telecom a few years ago, he wanted to prioritize the degrees of responsibility within a system of so-called Corporate. That is to say that the employee is so dedicated to the company he marries his values at the expense of hers and occasionally acts against his conscience.

Deal of the suffering in the workplace caused by the restructuring and layoffs, and suicides that follow it sometimes, is not new to cinema. We can mention Except the respect that I owe you of Fabienne Godet, Human Resources by Laurent Cantet, Violence of trade in the mid-temperate of Jean–Marc Moutout. And of course, the recent Carole Matthew de Louis-Julien Petit , whose Nicolas Silhol, learning that the other project on the same subject was in progress, is kept to see the film in order to avoid any comparison. What’s new with CORPORATE, it is to put in scene a young woman directly involved in the workings of the system – Emilie, brilliantly interpreted by Céline Sallette. Director of Human Resources, she has been the strong arm of management. But weakened by the suicide in the company of one of its employees, the executive woman will little by little doubt, examine his conscience, to understand the role it has played and assume its responsibilities.

“Realistic, Corporate allows you to understand the mechanics of suffering at work” Click To Tweet

The viewer who knows the ruthless world of the company, its organization, its coldness and its terms warriors, will not be stranger to it. It may even no longer have the desire to set foot in his office after the vision of CORPORATE ! Others will no doubt be aghast face of such inhumanity under the guise of research performance. Because the director, who has many documented, analysis with finesse the issues and the springs of human relations. He dissects the vocabulary of the psychic suffering at work and its consequences manifest on the body of workers. Nicolas Silhol puts very well in evidence the relationship is unbalanced and toxic that has Emilie with Stephane, the director. The latter (an excellent Lambert Wilson), the admiration of Emilia, as he offered him power, a position in gold, and the responsibilities of restructuring that go with it. But the mentor, manipulator, and sometimes a reward, and values, sometimes critical, and breeze through a sentence this good little soldier who feels indebted, and must constantly prove his loyalty.

Without letting it blow, CORPORATE takes the spectator in this adventure that Nicolas Silhol has desired that it is carried out “on a pace of a few weeks, reinforcing the dramatic emergency “. The staging is very effective appeals to many plans symbolic and to many flashbacks. At the heart of this atmosphere of tension and lack of courage, in a world in which the suicide of a man rule to shots of protocol and communication, how to continue to look in the mirror for Emilie ? What is the proper distance that should be put in the face of his emotions when taking decisions in disagreement with his soul ? How to live with the shame ? How do even trust his colleagues ? No more to the young secretary Sophie (touching Alice de Lencquesaing), that his colleague Vincent (Stéphane De Groodt), ready to help, but a little too flirty to be honest, nor its employees struck by his involvement, nor to the trade unions…

Emilie withdrew little by little, even within the couple, ” evolving all the time in her intimate zone like a foreign land “, as explained by Céline Sallette. The help will come from outside this world closed in on itself, gargarisé its newspeak of management, with the character of Mary, Inspector of work (perfect Violaine Fumeau). The two women will get to know, and then deliver them in a fight. The director has found it ” interesting to compare a profile sophisticated with attributes forced to manhood and a woman, free and uninhibited “. And in this sense CORPORATE is a film that can be said to be feminist, that will also be good for women who work and live in a world of men.

The director, quite surprised at the effect of freedom of speech caused by the vision of his film for the first time, has decided to show it to associations for HR managers and occupational physicians. Because CORPORATE is a film desperately realistic and useful, against the consciences, but also gives a little balm to the heart to those who have hurt their work.

Sylvie-Noelle

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