Led by Laurent (wonderful Vincent Lindon), striking workers at a French auto-parts company tenuously hold their ground while demanding to meet with the company’s remote CEO, removed by one country and several orders of not-giving-a-shit in Germany. Ruthless in exposing the pathologies of corporate culture and the fatuousness of its defenders (and its victim-enablers), Stéphane Brizé’s red-blooded drama is structured as a series of conflicts that lead to that final showdown, each one escalating the unavoidable cycle of class conflict to a chaotic and viscerally depicted climax. When the big boss eventually shows up, he’s full of almost comically glib platitudes, until the reptilian cant of a true capitalist zealot finally pours out. His fate is more satisfying (and funnier) than the perhaps unnecessarily melodramatic turn that awaits others, but until then, At War is like Gallic Ken Loach: a fantastic blast of humane and righteously angry cinema.

Published September, 2016