L'invitation

When a timid office worker inherits from his mother, he moves to a beautiful house in the country. The invitation is to his coworkers and supervisor. All the petty jealousies and office intrigues are then exposed without the working place conventions to hide them. The result is a wonderful little movie, full of right on target observations and everyday life details. Don't miss this one.

One of Swiss cinema's greatest directors Claude Goretta has a special knack of revealing hidden acting capabilities of actors who were initially not so famous but went on to become major stars. One has to see how he gave countless opportunities to showcase acting talents to major established stars of French cinema namely Gérard Depardieu (PAS SI MECHANT QUE CA), Isabelle Adjani (La Dentellière) and Nathalie Baye (La Provinciale).L'Invitation" is a very special film in Claude Goretta's filmography as it charts a different intellectual course for him. It retains the gift of maintaining universal charm even at a time when it appears to be firmly rooted in realities specific to that of Switzerland. L'Invitation shows the funny world of ordinary office workers which are always around us. We get to see how human weaknesses can be revealed during the course of a single day of merry making when people do not think twice before getting rid of their inhibitions and morals. The film questions the attitude of people towards money especially when one gets the idea that an ordinary man has got hold of a huge sum of money. Moody women play important roles in this film in order to reveal how they view an unattractive man. The best thing about this film is that Claude Goretta takes an impartial stand as he shows these office workers as how they are without glamorizing their ignominious existence. The film has universal appeal as three of its major characters: an ordinary office employee, an office clown and an authoritarian office employee can be found in any office in any part of the world. Those interested in actors must watch out for Swiss actor François Simon who would later enact the pivotal role of one of world's greatest philosophers Jean-Jacques Rousseau [1712-1778] in "LES CHEMINS DE L'EXIL" directed in 1978 by Claude Goretta.

This movie had a considerable reputation in the 1970s, and made Goretta a significant international name--though somehow both those things faded out after the decade's end. "The Invitation" is basically one of those "Everybody is invited for a party, then after a few drinks all their true personalities and hypocrises come out," and we've all seen that before. Here, things are "opened up" a bit by having the setting be a spacious country home which the party-giver has acquired with money inherited from his beloved late mother, and to which he invites all his former coworkers from a generic office.

But without turning in any particularly novel (let alone melodramatic) direction, this winds up being among the best of its type. There's a fondness for human foibles that makes the gradual degeneration into messy behavior touching rather than pat or predictable, and all the characters transcend our initial impressions. It's a movie that has elements of pathos, social satire, and more, all of which are expertly calibrated to balance out. You can see why this movie has been somewhat forgotten--its pleasures are all ultimately rather low-key--but that's a pity, not just because it's very good but also because it's dated less than many better-remembered films of its period.