FRANCIA, BELGIUM, SPAIN
LE COUPERET
2004 – 35mm – c - 122’
Direction: Constantin Costa Gavras
Screenplay: Jean-Claude Grumberg, Constantin Costa Gavras; based on the novel The Ax by Donald E. Westlake
Cinematography: Patrick Blossier
Editing: Yannick Kergoat
Set design: Laurent Deroo
Music: Armand Amar
Costumes: Laurence Marechal
Cast: José Garcia, Karin Viard, Ulrick TuKur
Producers: Michele Ray-Gavras, Jose Maria Morales, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne
Production: KG Productions, France 2 Cinema, Studiocanal, Les Films du Fleuve, RTBF, Scope Invest, Wanda Vision
SYNOPSIS
Bruno Davert is one of the managers in the paper mill where he has been working for 15 years. Even if he is a serious, conscientious worker, one day he and about a hundred colleagues are dismissed because of an economic redistribution. Convinced of being still young and with satisfying competences, he thinks he can find a similar job in a short time. But three years later he is still unemployed and he is worried because he can’t assure a satisfying standard of life to his family, so he undertakes a desperate struggle against the system which has crushed him and in order to obtain what he wants he doesn’t hesitate to eliminate one by one his potential rivals…
CRITICAL NOTE
“Directed by Costa Gavras in a state of grace, dominated by sensational Josè Garcia (..) Le Couperet is many things together. It’s a thriller played on the thread of a paradoxical suspense (…). It’s a noir comedy full of facts and details. It’s a story that seems to originate from the crime news but is taken from a novel. (…) and it is also the umpteenth good film on work shot in France in the latest years (…) All this thanks to a script that doesn’t miss a strike and beside inserting this tragedy in a portray of hallucinating normality makes of every character a door open to the world. An extraordinary performance, all concentration and spirituality, for an Hispano-French that until now has drawn the laugh in comedies.” (Fabio Ferzetti)
AWARDS
2005 Film by the Sea International Film Festival: Film and Literature Award
