Ideals, Jobs in Conflict in ‘Human Resources’

Work is a defining activity, a source of self-respect, the core of many people’s lives. But when it comes to movies, filmmakers in this country mostly make believe work doesn’t exist. Get lucky, get rich quick, take this job and shove it--that’s more our style.

In Europe, where workers are either burdened or blessed (depending on your point of view) with much greater class consciousness, that’s not the case. Directors like Ken Loach in Britain and the Dardennes brothers in Belgium understand how intrinsically dramatic working-class conflicts can be. “Human Resources,” an effortless dramatic first theatrical feature from French writer-director Laurent Cantet, is very much in that tradition.

Saying a film deals with class disputes doesn’t sound that exciting. But “Human Resources” defies that judgment by focusing on issues without shortchanging emotional connections. Concerned with fathers and sons, expectations and dreams, ideals and reality, this completely engrossing film gets more involving as it goes on. While it’s clear which side it is on, it never descends into dogmatism.

The film’s star, Jalil Lespert, is its only professional actor. The rest of the cast was selected by Cantet from unemployed individuals who in flusher times held the same kinds of jobs as their characters. They also participated in a certain amount of workshopping that Cantet and Gilles Marchand (who has a “written in collaboration with” credit) made use of in constructing the film’s script.

Lespert plays a young man named Frank, introduced on a train ride from Paris to his native Normandy. A student at a prestigious business school, Frank is not only going home, he’s going to spend the summer as an executive trainee in the same factory whose shadow he grew up in.

Now a part of an international conglomerate called Group TGT, the factory is filled with presses that stamp out sheet metal parts that couldn’t be more anonymous. Frank’s father (Jean-Claude Vallod), at his press 30 years, is proud of his ability to turn out 700 of these pieces an hour.

A taciturn, undemonstrative man, Frank’s father is nevertheless proud of his son’s success, his quickness and his ability to get on well with the factory boss (Lucien Longueville). Frank, too, with his open, easy-to-read face, is pleased despite himself at having risen in the world.

Not that there aren’t problems. It’s no longer seemly for Frank to eat with his old pals in the factory, and he finds himself irritated at his pre-biz-school friends. The way his parents whisper to each other in their own house so as not to disturb him while he works at home makes him feel understandably ill at ease.

Frank has chosen a study of a potential 35-hour-week for the factory as his project, a decision that exacerbates tensions. The workers are worried the new situation will cost jobs and mean more work for less pay. Mrs. Arnaud (a wonderful Danielle Melador), the factory’s passionate Communist union representative, is especially scornful of the plan and Frank’s role in it.

Sure of himself and what he can accomplish, Frank doesn’t realize what the film carefully and thoughtfully demonstrates: that he’s running the risk of outsmarting himself, and that a lot of areas he saw as black-and-white really exist in different shades of gray. When the ground is pulled out from under him, Frank has to choose where to stand, and that process is the heart of “Human Resources’ ” powerful drama.

* MPAA rating: unrated. Times guidelines: mature subject matter.

‘Human Resources’

Jalil Lespert: Frank

Jean-Claude Vallod: Father

Chantal Barre: Mother

Lucien Longueville: Chief Executive

Danielle Melador: Mrs. Arnoux

Co-produced by ARTE and Haut et Court. Distributed by Shooting Gallery. Director Laurent Cantet. Producers Caroline Benjo, Carole Scotta. Screenplay Laurent Cantet, in collaboration with Gilles Marchand. Cinematography Matthieu Poirot-Delpech, Claire Caroff. Editor Robin Campillo. Set design Romain Denis. Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes.

Playing at the Beverly Center.