Le capital (2012) Reviews

• "It's not a measure of health to be well adjusted in a profoundly sick society."

  xdisruptor2013-09-22

  If there is one message that the movie is trying to communicate to its audience it's the above title. There are of course reviews that point out the alleged likeliness of this film with movies like "Wall Street" usually concluding "that there is nothing new to see". Under closer examination however, any similarities between the two films go only skin-deep and can only be considered superficial. There are fundamental differences between these two movies because they represent two different approaches and evaluations of the same issue and which one hits home is up for you to decide. And thats because "Wall Street" focuses on the seducing power and aloofness of a loan shark that acts as a money fueled lone wolf, as opposed to the naiveness of a young rookie which is slow to disillusion himself about his own actions while he's getting carried away (but eventually comes out on top etc). The caveat of such scenarios is in that they constantly, silently and almost purposefully marginalize the inherent, all consuming, self-perpetuating environment and ill-conceived culture that money in and all by itself creates, even for "the winners of the game". La Capital on the other hand has none of the above shortcomings when it comes to describing the black hole lurking deep into the very foundations of our culture: Money. It's a film about attitudes and value systems across the board, with a scenario that's free of cliché good-guy-vs-bad-guy dualities and with the courageous nerve to "pull no punches" sparing its viewer from having to suffer another stereotypical "happy ending" made-in-Hollywood (has elements of it but still its not "right into your face"). Finally, I would just like to add that, all in all, Mr Gavras is right in that there will come a time in the not so distant future ... A time in which, among other things, our western culture will look back to the contemporary intellectuals and artists to examine which ones did of their duty in terms of articulating the public opinion, bringing the spotlight on the machinations of the financial system and the corrosive effects that money in and all by itself has both on our societies as a whole, in our own micro-worlds and those of our acquaintances as well as our own fragile, individual psyches. And when this time comes I think that the memory of both Mr Gavras and those that stood by him in this and similar projects will be, if not exalted, then at the very least spared from the outrage of the dystopian poverty-striken masses.

• a modern-day parable

  andrersgoncalves2014-09-03

  What most people don't get is that the title of this movie is the title of Marx's "Das Kapital". All characters in this movie are allegorical and allude to ideas in Marx's book. Mao Tse Tung, the ironic use of the social revolution to lay off people, the overly caricature relationship with Nassim (as all other relationships) make reference to relationships on an institutional, economical and political level. If you watch it this way (without overdoing it) it will make far more sense than just a simple story. Agreeing with the ideas is a whole different ball game, but the movie is overall deeper than most people seem to acknowledge.

• "My friends, I'm the modern Robin Hood

  rightwingisevil2013-04-30

  Let's continue to rob the poor and make the rich richer!" this is what about the modern day banking and financing (undre)world, banks are just like Mafia, bankers Mafiosos, banks' CEO in private jet doing country hopping, hiring retired cop to do the dirt-digging and trashcan/dumpster diving jobs, committing some adultery flirting with high priced model- hooker, back-stabbing while self defense, behind the door deals, estranged to parents, wives, kids, fence off hostile takeover, firing the employees as many as possible, no gender and age are safe, laying off more, the stockholders will be happier and the stock will be rocketing. so, indeed "money is not a tool but a master, serving him well and he'll reward you generously". so let's continue to rob the poor blind and serve the rich loyally. what a great movie, very tense and thrilling, great montage, lot of exotic locations in different countries. this is a very nicely done movie, quite worth watching.

• Passionate fury, but light on aesthetics

  Eumenides_02013-05-01

  Gad Elmaleh plays Marc Tourneuil, an employee at a powerful French bank, the Phénix, who unexpectedly becomes its president when his boss starts dying from cancer. Handpicked by him because he will be easier to control, Tourneuil turns the tables around when he starts going against the board members' wishes. His real challenge, however, comes when Dittmar Rigule (played by Gabriel Byrne), a financer running a hedge fund out of Miami, becomes the Phénix's major stockholder and forces it to adopt American-style wild capitalism. Tourneuil's first mission is to fire around 10,000 people in order to increase the stockholders' profits by 20%. That he does with aplomb, even after organising a world-wide video-conference with every Phénix employee and director to assure them that there will be no massive downsizing. But Tourneuil starts sensing a real threat to his survival when Dittmar insists in him buying a Japanese bank that a report claims to be in serious financial trouble. Guessing Dittmar's plan to make him look incompetent while debilitating the Phénix with a ruinous hostile takeover that will guarantee the Miami hedge fund to gain total control of it, Tourneuil puts into practice a two-faced scheme not so much to save his bank but to make sure he comes out of the battle as its de facto leader. In our current economic climate, one has to wonder about the wisdom of making the hero an immoral, selfish banker who calls himself a modern Robin Hood, stealing from the poor so the rich may become richer. Tourneuil shows off his affluence without moral pangs for the lives he destroys, and his daily existence is a series of globe-trotting journeys to exotic places like Tokyo and Miami, where he hangs out at luxurious parties with models. He cheats on his wife (Natacha Régnier), rapes a fashion model (Liya Kebede), and belittles the optimism of one of his employees (Céline Sallette) not long after he had made her believe he shared her moral values. Add to Tourneuil's loathsome personality and actions Elmaleh's cold stare and stony facial expressions, and you have a protagonist who is only the hero because the villains, the predatory Miami bankers, are much worse. Elmaleh is so bland one presumes if has to be part of the acting. Perhaps it's Costa-Gavras' intention to totally dehumanize the banking class. Be as it may, Elmaleh comes off as a poor man's Alan Delon, no emotion in his icy blue eyes, but no charisma either. The vicious, ambiguous Tourneuil is in the vein of Costa-Gavras' previous anti-hero from The Axe. In this movie an upper-middle class executive is fired during his company's downsizing. After two years unemployed, he starts killing his competitors for job vacancies. It's a lovely dark comedy that constantly asks the viewer why he should care about this ruthless bastard getting a job when there are millions of better people with worse lives in the same desperate situation. I think perhaps it's because we don't care about poor people anymore. Decades ago – I mean the turbulent and hopeful sixties and seventies – people believed in class war, people even had had and though the world could be made a better place. But we live in an age when the media vehemently say class war does not exist, and instead scares us into thinking the world is a cesspit that will remain a cesspit because we're too insignificant to make a difference. And perhaps they're right. So in this atomised environment, the poor are poor because they want to not because of circumstances beyond their power, we are frequently told. And although in the past one could feel sympathy for them, nowadays we feel disgusted by them. We don't like poor people, we don't want to see them, we don't want to think about them. We admire the rich, the famous, the powerful, we want to be them. So instead of wanting to make the viewer feel sad about the wretched, when that shtick doesn't work anymore in our selfish era, Costa-Gavras shows how he thinks the rich think and live, and then asks, "Are these your modern heroes, are these the people you want to be? Are you really capable of rooting for these scumbags?" The message is interesting, but the actual execution lacks merit and sounds too preachy to seduce any viewer who reasonably doesn't like to be lectured without a good dose of entertainment to wash it down. The characters' motivations are frequently sketchy, many characters are one-dimensional, and the dialogue is peppered with too many corny aphorisms that lack the depth the screenwriters mistakenly think they have. In 1969 Z, a fast-paced thriller about the investigation into the murder of a left-wing Greek candidate, won two Academy awards, was a worldwide success and catapulted the director into stardom. In the seventies, working with screenwriters Jorge Semprún and Franco Solinas, he made several good movies: The Confession, State of Siege, Special Section. Each showcased his knack for exciting montages, clever humour, polemical topics and entertaining story lines, and although they never met with Z's success they were at least every bit as watchable. But starting in the eighties his career started decaying, his movies losing their panache and becoming bland vehicles to vent his moral and social outrage. The fury started compromising the artistry. The world today isn't very different than the world of the young filmmaker who made Z and State of Siege. But I think it's time for a new generation of politically-committed filmmakers to bear the torch, with Costa-Gavras's fierce passion but also the skills he displayed decades ago. Then we can have intelligent and relevant political cinema again. If art has the power to change the world, and I believe it has that power, it must be an art of a greater aesthetic value than Le Capital.

• The real vice jungle

  searchanddestroy-12012-11-21

  Since four years now and the beginning of the world wide economic crisis, this kind of films emerges from nearly everywhere. This movies is not an exception. It describes the ruthless, fierce, cruel and greedy financial world - I would say underworld. Many people have said this is too much in caricature, full of clichés. Yes I agree with that, but it's very realistic. And so cynical too. As I have rarely seen before. Costa Gavras tries so hard to disgust the audience, make the viewers puke all over the joint in watching this feature. What is the most interesting, is that the lead is actually a disgusting hero. I have never seen a hero described in such a way. Never in a life time watching films. I Love this. But that doesn't make it a great film. Only surprising about this detail. That's all. I prefer it to WALL STREET films. Although it's not better. Worth the look. No more.