As At War begins, with news footage and voiceover setting the stage for a true-sounding story about a French manufacturing plant being shut down by the German multinational that owns it, the viewer could be forgiven for assuming they are about to watch a documentary. But as the action moves inside the negotiations between the corporation’s mid-level management and the workers’ union, the carefully chosen vitriol hurled between the two dueling parties reads as too cute to be unscripted. This is a passionate and furious film comprised largely of angry French people yelling at each other, but its form ultimately undermines its themes.
Conceived to push the limits of cinema verite and to expose the rigged nature of capitalism, At War’s approach as a fake film about real problems presenting itself so closely to the aesthetics of documentary is frustrating for a number of reasons. But chief among them is the necessity for the uneven playing field of global economics to be played straight and fair.
Sure, Eric Laurent (Vincent Lindon), the charismatic leader of the workers’ union, is presented like a fucking superhero, but to offset his being both eloquent and correct, the simpering suits on the opposite side of the conflict are constantly being treated like innocent bystanders in a corrupt system rather than the villains a more dramatically satisfying film (or a more objective documentary) might show them to be. For the filmmakers’ thesis to feel sound, an easy tale of good versus bad must be suppressed to play out like a portrait of varying shades of victimhood, a confounding creative decision given the disparity between cast members.
In scene after scene, Lindon shouts and pounds his fists with convincing belly fire, spouting plainspoken truths about his compatriots’ predicament. For the first 20 minutes or so, it’s a compelling subject for a film, because this sort of thing happens all the time and it doesn’t take much for an audience to rally behind underdogs who’ve sacrificed for a future they’re being robbed of. In the film, the workers agreed to major concessions (no bonuses, working 40-hour work weeks at 35-hour pay) in order for the corporation to keep the plant open for five more years. After two, the Germans renege on the deal. This is precisely the sort of clear cut, pro-labor fight-for-what’s-right story that should be a cinematic rallying cry!
But this isn’t written like a galvanizing legal thriller where the viewer roots for the plant to stay open. It’s pretty obvious from the outset they will lose, and in keeping with the documentary approach, viewers just have to watch repetitive scenes where a group of individuals shout how right they are while gaining zero traction. If it’s meant to force the audience to accept the depressing reality of capitalism, it succeeds only in boring them with the mundanity of this truth. The film forges forward in such a plodding way, never creating real drama, only prolonging the intermittently interesting stalemate far past the point where such an experiment can be reasonably sustained.
Just when it becomes offensive how far the filmmakers have pushed their threadbare premise without the necessary application of fictional tactics to make the story go down smoother, the third act offers a truly disgusting twist that veers too far in the opposite direction, like watching the tortoise come so close to besting the hare only to choose to leap carelessly into a ravine at the last possible minute.
The result is an occasionally fascinating thought experiment about a vital topic brought low by poor storytelling and a dogged adherence to a flawed set-up. At least it is until the filmmakers abandon the seeming strictures of that set-up in such a way as to insult all that’s come before it. A waste in every sense of the word.
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