In this short essay on “La Loi du marché” (“The Measure of a Man”, 2015), I argue that the film builds an accurate representation of the economic and social relations in capitalism, aggravated by the neoliberal offensive

Sérgio Dias Branco

Film International

Humanities Commons

24/02/18, 18)43The Law of Capital: <em>The Measure of a Man</em> | Film InternationalPágina 1 de 2http://filmint.nu/?p=19295Sunday, September 11th, 2016 | Posted by Film InternationalThe Law of Capital: The Measure of a ManBy Sérgio DiasBranco.Thierry Taugourdeau,factory worker, wasfired along with morethan 750 of hiscolleagues. He is 51years old and hasbeen unemployed foralmost two. In the firstscene of The Measureof a Man (La Loi dumarché, 2015; “TheLaw of the Market” ina literal translation), a job center assistant is in front of him. The assistant questions him aboutthe fact that he was trained as a construction crane operator without any possibility of finding ajob at the end of this process. Both he and twelve other unemployed, many of them young, didnot have the experience required by the employer. The succession of training programs andinternships seem to feed from one into another. In the end, he always ends up out of work andapparently at a dead end. The above-mentioned scene announces the tone of the film: thecamera invites the spectator to attentively listen, continuously recording a conversation thatbecomes more and more intense, but without dramatic excesses, never showing the twocharacters at the same time on screen. When the camera pans from one to the other it is thedistance between them that stands out and gives resonance to Thierry’s helplessness —interrupted when speaking, his indignation ignored.This realism that undeviatingly concentrateson suffering faces, on modulated voices, ontense bodies, finds its main focus with Frenchactor Vincent Lindon, winner of the BestActor Award at the Cannes Film Festival andthe César Award in the same category. Hissadness is the dramatic expression of thecrushing of people who live off their workand who have lost their livelihood. The lawof the capitalist labor market alluded to in theoriginal title strikes him down, time after time, humiliation after humiliation, in a gradual andplacid mechanism of submission. An interview via Skype proves to be a vexatious waste oftime. The attempt to sell a family caravan is not carried through because the buyer wants tonegotiate a much lower price than what had been agreed upon. A workshop for thedevelopment of his abilities as a job candidate subjects him to the negative feedback of thosewho are in the same situation as him and have accepted fierce competition as a principle. Tooold, without the necessary qualifications and skills, forced to adopt a mechanical behavior inorder to be successful, everything he does seems inadequate.24/02/18, 18)43The Law of Capital: <em>The Measure of a Man</em> | Film InternationalPágina 2 de 2http://filmint.nu/?p=19295In the midst of these trials, Thierry shares moments of laughter and dance with his wife andautistic child. The unemployment benefit he receives is not enough to cover living costs,particularly those related with the health care that his son needs. At the bank, he is told to sellthe house or purchase life insurance. Affected by the fatigue of an arduous life with no solution,he tells his union friends that he does not want to participate in a case against their formeremployers, so that he does not have to relive the struggle he put up and keeps his sanity. He is aman on the verge of collapse, and does not lose firmness or constancy in his misfortune.When Thierry decides to ask for a small loan,he already has a job as a security guard in asupermarket. Increasingly quiet andintroverted, he is assigned the task ofsurveilling not only the customers, but alsothe cashiers. The monitoring of other peopleraises moral dilemmas for him that continuesto increase until they intersect with the tragicoutcome of one of the episodes. Some of thepeople who commit petty theft cannot afford to buy the products. The colleagues who handlethe cash registers are caught holding on to coupons and collecting points and it is clear that theydo it because of their low wages, which are similar to his. Thus, he is placed by the employer inthe role of spy of other workers and participant in their dismissal. The agents of capital who runthis business address everyone as if they formed a team of equals, but put workers againstworkers, break their solidarity, and mask their exploitation. Thierry will have to choose whetherto remain associated with this inhuman treatment or to return to an anguished job search.The Measure of a Man, directed by Stéphane Brizé, portrays the problems of the contemporarylabor world without yielding to the rhetoric of a message. As in Two Days, One Night (Deuxjours, une nuit, 2014), it is through the characters, their difficulties and aspirations, joys andfrustrations, that the film builds an accurate representation of the economic and social relationsin capitalism, aggravated by the neoliberal offensive. What Friedrich Engels wrote in a letter toMinna Kautsky in 1885 applies to these films. The subject of his commentary was the so-calledsocial novel that, according to him, “fully carries out its mission if by a faithful portrayal of thereal conditions it dispels the dominant conventional illusions concerning them, shakes theoptimism of the bourgeois world, and inevitably instils doubt as to the eternal validity of thatwhich exists, without itself offering a direct solution of the problem involved, even without attimes ostensibly taking sides.”¹ Of course, the questions and demands for responses that apowerful film such as this, “a faithful portrayal of the real conditions”, originates can lead us totake sides, which is exactly the implication of Engels’s remarks.Sérgio Dias Branco is Assistant Professor of Film Studies at the University of Coimbra,Portugal, where he coordinates the Film and Image Studies and directs the MA in Art Studies.He is a co-editor of Cinema: Journal of Philosophy and the Moving Image  and Conversations:The Journal of Cavellian Studies. Further information here.¹Friedrich Engels, “Engels to Minna Kautsky,” Marx and Engels on Literature and Art,(Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1976), 88.

“The Law of Capital: ‘The Measure of a Man’”

Branco, Sérgio Dias

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The Law of Capital: “The Measure of a Man”

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“The Law of Capital: ‘The Measure of a Man’”

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