22 year-old- Yan is trying hard to find his way in life: a job he likes, an ideal. In Saint-Nazaire, his home town, he vegetates, just like his father, an unambitious worker. His fiancée, Juliette, has middle class values and dreams of nothing but a comfortable married life. Dissatisfied, he moves to Paris where he becomes an assembly line worker at the Billancourt Renault car factory. Sick of the working conditions he and his fellow workers have to endure there, he soon turns into a leftist activist...
Direction
Karmitz captures factory hell with documentary-like urgency.
Acting
Giquel's dead-eyed transformation from slacker to revolutionary.
Director
Marin Karmitz
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Made during the post-1968 hangover, this captures when French workers actually believed change was possible. Optimism! Remember that?
Director Marin Karmitz shot at the actual Renault Billancourt plant, using real workers as extras. Some reportedly didn't realize it was fiction and tried to unionize the film crew.
FR
