After the ludic extravagance of « La Chair de l'Orchidée » in 1974, Patrice Chéreau gave us this almost documentary descent into gloom.
A provincial daily is sinking into collapse, which means loss of livelihood for the workers and loss of capital for the owners. With its fall go the ideals of its founders, leaders of the Resistance, who fought against Vichy and Nazi dictatorships and dreamed of a free democratic republic served by a free press. Its sales are being stolen by a freesheet, set up by a millionaire interested only in profit, who fills it with lurid ads for cheap goods but wins popular support by backing the local football team.
To this communal tragedy are added personal tragedies. When the director is hospitalised, with not long to live, the widowed Judith is persuaded to come out of empty retirement and take over the paper. The employees, all infected with varying degrees of egotism and accidie, fail to unite behind her. Resigning in despair, her previously friendly young driver takes the car to her front gate but does not bother to drive up to her front door, saying « this will be enough ». She walks up to the house alone and we hear a shot.
Needless to praise Simone Signoret, almost at the end of her distinguished career, whose film this is. The many other parts are all minor, reflecting the insignificance of the characters.
A provincial daily is sinking into collapse, which means loss of livelihood for the workers and loss of capital for the owners. With its fall go the ideals of its founders, leaders of the Resistance, who fought against Vichy and Nazi dictatorships and dreamed of a free democratic republic served by a free press. Its sales are being stolen by a freesheet, set up by a millionaire interested only in profit, who fills it with lurid ads for cheap goods but wins popular support by backing the local football team.
To this communal tragedy are added personal tragedies. When the director is hospitalised, with not long to live, the widowed Judith is persuaded to come out of empty retirement and take over the paper. The employees, all infected with varying degrees of egotism and accidie, fail to unite behind her. Resigning in despair, her previously friendly young driver takes the car to her front gate but does not bother to drive up to her front door, saying « this will be enough ». She walks up to the house alone and we hear a shot.
Needless to praise Simone Signoret, almost at the end of her distinguished career, whose film this is. The many other parts are all minor, reflecting the insignificance of the characters.
