One-Liners: Archives

THE HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGER (2011) (A-minus) - Director Eran Riklis followed up "Syrian Bride" and "Lemon Tree" with this equally affecting character study of a burnt-out corporate manager who reconnects with his own humanity as he accompanies the body of the victim of a Jerusalem bus bombing back to her home in Romania.

The HR manager (he isn't given a name; he's played by TV actor Mark Ivanir) is struggling with his marriage and has returned to work at a major bakery after a sabbatical. He becomes the point man for the company (owned by the "Widow" (Gila Almagor)) in a PR crisis after an employee's body lingers at the morgue a week after the terrorist attack. It turns out that the employee had been quietly dismissed by a lower-level supervisor, but the company still could get raked over in the press for such callous treatment of a worker. (What a quaint idea.) It turns out that the supervisor had fallen in love with her, dismissed her a month earlier to save his marriage, but kept her on the payroll for a while. So, the Widow tells the HR manager to act as an ambassador and accompany the body of Yulia back to her homeland, with a reporter (Guri Alfi) tagging along for the scoop.

A classic road trip and hero's journey ensue. The HR manager and the casket are greeted by the loopy Israeli consul and her husband, and immediately he has to bribe the locals just to get the body on a vehicle out of the airport. Yulia's husband turns out to be her ex-husband, so he can't sign a burial certificate. He helps them track down their son (an engaging Noah Silver), who is living wild on the streets. The Boy insists that they take his mother's body to her hometown and her mother. The 100-kilometer trip through a snowstorm is filled with folly.

When they finally arrive, the Mother's response is heartbreaking. The journey continues.

Riklis (working from a script by Noah Stollman, based on a novel by Abraham Jehoshua), like in his previous efforts, strikes a balance between humor and drama, mainly by finding the basic civility in each of the finely etched characters. Slapstick blends well with pathos. This is a moving human story.

MASCULIN FEMININ (1966) (B) -  Merely above-average Godard from his '60s peak era.

We follow sensitive writer/agitator Paul (Godard regular Jean-Pierre Leaud) as he courts an aspiring pop singer Madeleine (Chantal Goya, sporting a proto-Parker Posey smile). Godard, shooting in grainy black and white, created a near-documentary chronicling the bubbling anti-war movement in Paris in late 1965 and early 1966. We are immersed in the real events of the middle of the decade, with preppy young adults, still Kennedy cute, awakening to the horrors of American's actions in Vietnam. Godard is announcing the arrival of youth power as the Baby Boomers progressed into their 20s. An interstitial title card announces, "This film could be called The Children of Marx and Coca-Cola."

"Masculin Feminin" reminded me of "David Holzman's Diary," shot a year later in New York by Jim McBride, who placed his romantic characters into real settings throughout the city, absorbing its authentic sights and sounds as background material. That American masterpiece compares favorably with this offering from the godfather of the French New Wave. Godard uses natural lighting and dialogue that seems partly improvised (or written on the fly).

Here, Paul and Madeleine date rather chastely while pontificating about love and sex. Paul messes around with a couple of others in Madeleine's circle. Long scenes unfold in cinema verite style, as the characters drone on in conversation. Often one subject is out of frame -- usually Paul as he interrogates the women individually to various degrees. Godard was feeling his way through the early days of the sexual revolution, as his female characters occasionally find a feminist voice. That probably was revolutionary at the time.