SITTING TARGET

 I should have gotten around to La Syndicaliste/Sitting Duck during the French Film Festival. It was one of their best offerings. It's getting an extended run so all is not lost.

Huppert faces the flics.

This one kicks off with the indestructible Isabelle Huppert as the hard hat union representative defending the rights of retrenched Hungarian woman power workers against their multi-national corporation. ("Since Fukushima, Nuclear has become a difficult word"). That's a lot of boxes ticked already and there's more to come. Back in the Paris Headquarters, a new male executive is displacing the female C.E.O. that Isabelle takes tea with. However, a whistle-blower has a copy document indicating that the company is making a secret deal with the Chinese that will eliminate thousands of jobs and cut France out of reactor production.  

It all comes with the best A feature values. We think we know what we are in for but writer-director Jean-Paul Salomé (Female Agents, Belphagor) is not just someone who knows his market. His subject is deception. Sitting Duck's special feature is that it repeatedly makes us doubt its central premise, just as his characters come to.

When she starts making waves, Isabelle gets disturbing 'phone calls with no one on the line. Then the housekeeper comes back to find her hooded, duct taped (Not "Scotch", as laid back, about to retire husband Gilbert Gardebois corrects) in a chair and gashed, with the knife rammed into her vagina. The filmmaking is so assured that after we have heard that described it still comes as a shock when the film plays on and we see what we already know.

The Gendarmerie provide protection but become dissatisfied and we get the reconstruction they demand - barking dog, jammed drawer, a clinical examination (menacing gynecologist's stirrups) and allegations of hysteria. Ah, but there's more!

This one has moved from agitprop to polar and joined the ranks of those superior political thrillers like L'attentat and Z: He Lives!, from half a century back.  It isn't disgraced in the comparison. There are a few odd choices like opening a scene on Huppert's conspicuous blonde chignon but for the most part, a substantial budget is deployed effectively - convincing settings, striking establishing drone exteriors and a strong cast with a few half-recognised faces mixed in with the unfamiliar players. Yes, that is Alexandra Maria Lara with her one key scene played in shared close-ups with Huppert. 

If they are putting factual material on screen, this is alarming and significant and, even if it's fashion-dictated fiction, it's still gripping. Sitting Ducks represents the class end of current film production and deserves all the attention it can get.

Barrie Pattison 2924