Heartbeat Detector (2007)

Undescribable Perfection

A Disappointing Continuation

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

NB: SPOILERS THROUGHOUT Neither the symptomatic alcoholism of despair apparently rife on the production line at SC Farb, the French branch of a German petrochemical company, nor the suicidal depression of it's boss merit more positive counselling remedies. Defective performance merits only elimination. This is the business of the firm's 'Human Resources' Department.Tasked with this soulless duty, Simon suffers a personal crisis when his official persecution of Just, the CEO of Farb, only brings him face-to-face with 'mon semblable, mon frere' in the form of the family and corporate guilt that has finally overwhelmed Just. Simon must unwittingly trace lineal descent from the Nazi past in the deadly ruthlessness of the managerialist expedients his own job demands. Thereafter he suffers nightmares, both sleeping and waking, that seem to expose a vast and unrelenting corporate attack on the integrity of human nature. Simon begins to realise that his inability to admit love or empathy for another is destroying his own closest relationship. Soulless techno music, which is the chosen relaxation of his professional colleagues, is designed to pound human sensibilities into mindless oblivion - the rhythmic tabula rasa which is the necessary conditioning for unquestioning de-personalized adherence to corporate doctrine. By contrast, it is shocking to experience the intense spirituality of the passionate and moving fado and flamenco performances elicited from some talented individuals at a 'works outing' organised by Simon. Ironically, this musical enterprise was merely intended by Simon as a false flag cover for his investigation of Just, who was once himself a greatly talented musician, and at one time sufficiently enlightened to encourage such personal endeavours amongst his staff. A recording of Just's own performance in the Schubert string quartet 'Death and the Maiden' is heard, which strikes a beautiful and sombre note in the midst of corporate cultural savagery. Simon finds that he cannot bring in the damning report his superiors expected. He diverges from corporate 'new-speak' to utter the truth: Just is not mad - he is tired. It has become obvious to Simon that Just is tired from years of repressing his sense of guilt - he is, in point of fact, finally coming to his senses. And where the conscience-stricken Just leads, Simon follows with relief.Notable is the aforementioned use of uplifting music in counterpoint to nihilistic rock. Also effective is the final reading from German engineering and managerial reports on the research and development of Nazi technology for the efficient mass extermination of human beings, that suddenly identifies such dishonest and perverted language as the origin of modern corporate group-think. The film is not a political thriller in the racy Costs-Gavraz mode, but more a brooding journey into the European Heart of Darkness; feelings of Revulsion, rather than Revolution, being the intended effect.

I really did want to appreciate this movie for tackling a series of monumental subjects - corporate dehumanization, guilt by association (especially concerning the Holocaust), Orwellian destruction of meaningful language, and the fallibility of psychoanalysis. However, watching this made me realize why the similarly dense subject material from novelists like Don DeLillo and Thomas Pynchon rarely make it to the big screen is that they are much too diffuse, internal, and cerebral to even attempt in the plot-action-event world of film. I love film, and I love ideas, but all good film (even the most arty and pretentious) is about action first and ideas second. This film starts with the ideas and never lets the characters out from under them. A movie should never be about words, just as a novel should never have directions for camera angles.I can't make a conclusive evaluation of whether I loved it or hated it, so I give it a 5 out of 10. It fails in doing the impossible, so I have to give it some credit. This movie is a prime example of why some novels should never be made into films.

I last saw Mathieu Amalric as Jean-Do in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Winner of a César for that performance and two others, he is an accomplished actor. He displays his considerable skills in this film, which has him in the role of a psychologist who must interpret words and actions of others.He is charged with assessing the mental state of the company CEO, Mathias Jüst, played brilliantly by Michael Lonsdale, who has two César nominations himself, and a BAFTA nomination for the 1973 version of The Day of the Jackal. This occurs soon after the company undergoes a massive downsizing.The verbal give and take between the two was captivating. It became really interesting when Jüst sprung upon him that he knew he was being investigated, and gave information the reached back to the Third Reich.The involvement of the principles in the extermination of Jews was reveled in a way that was similar to the discussion of the reduction of employees in the company. People were referred to as loads or units in each case, not as humans.The inhuman language of extermination becomes the inhuman language of business, and the children of the Reich are left to deal with their father's sins.Powerful.

This ship wreck of a movie has got to be one of the most boring, irritating and absurd films I've ever watched. It ranks up there with only a couple others that I almost walked out on many, many years ago.No plot, no character development, irritating music and camera angles, bombastic dialogs, idiotic sequences and pointless scenes that drag on and on and on....I'm a grown man with a keen appreciation for art in all its forms, and do not consider myself averse to artistic, profound, philosophical movies, quite the opposite. But this is none of that. As I painfully watched, boredom turned into outright anger at the thought of wasting two hours of my life with this rubbish. And believe me, I've been known to waste some time on silly past times! This is just too much. I'm almost embarrassed, no, worse, incensed that I sat through it. Do yourselves a favor and avoid this load of you-know-what at all cost.