La commedia del potere

In Paris, the obstinate and tough judge Jeanne Charmant-Killman (Isabelle Hupert) investigates a corrupt and powerful corporation that is embezzling public funds, and its president Michel Humeau (François Berléand) is arrested and sent to prison. She uses the hearing to collect evidence against the board and lobbyists, and sends one by one to prison. Meanwhile the group sabotages the brakes and the steering wheel of her car forcing her to have the protection of two bodyguards. Then they use a promotion to try to persuade her to stop her work, moving her to a bigger office expecting competition and friction with the also competent and honest judge Eryka (Marilyne Canto) but they become close friends, focusing the same objective. Meanwhile her personal life is affected/ and she breaks off with her husband. When her husband apparently jumps off his apartment, Jeanne has to come up with a decision.

"L'Ivresse du Pouvoir" is another great movie of Claude Chabrol with a plot that recalls the style of Costa-Gravas. The story is extremely realistic about corrupt corporations involved in embezzling public money and a judge that becomes obsessed in sending the responsible to prison and make a difference in the corrupt justice system. All the cast has stunning performances, but the awesome Isabelle Hupert has another top- notch performance contrasting her fragility with the strength of her character that unfortunately is a fictional judge. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Comédia do Poder" ("Comedy of the Power")

Npte: On 15 January 2025, I saw this film again.

An examining magistrate, Jeanne Charmant Killman, has been charged to investigate a very delicate affair touching political and industrial circles. She puts in examination Humeau, the president of a very large French consortium, which works on foreign affairs. The judge pushes the president and many others personalities in order to clarify all the traffic implications of the affair. She will be bound to numerous influences and his life will be put into danger, also his family life. The film is centred both on large traffics and corruption, which exist on international business, and also on powers (sometimes too big) that exist for examining magistrate. Isabelle Huppert very well acts the movie, but it seams to me that it is not a very great Chabrol's movie.

I confess right from the beginning to being a fan of Isabelle Huppert. I am also a student of Claude Chabrol films. I say 'student', because his films are intellectual and challenging in nature. This film is a film of our times. And its themes are also timeless. The flawed protagonist, Huppert, lives shamelessly in front of the camera. She is very human, as well as idealistic. And her idealism is personal and competitive, as well as moralistic. Chabrol has captured grand corruption in a simple narrative about people alone and in conversation. Never slick, always homely and familiar. Isabelle Huppert's performance is tempered and unusually restrained. Her aptitude for endowing her characters with mannerism and eccentricity by using simple gestures and facial expressions is in full play here. This is a film that requires effort to appreciate, but it leaves you feeling quite full.

This new movie by Claude Chabrol is directly inspired by a true story. The "Affaire Elf", named by the french oil-company, was a large financial and political scandal where several top-level french politicians where involved, such as Roland Dumas (ex foreign-affairs minister) or Charles Pasqua (ex minister of interior). As in the true story, a judge is investigating about some corruption in business between a french major company and some African states. Most of the characters in the movie are very similar to real persons involved in the "Affaire Elf".

The movie focuses on two subjects: the first one is how the judge (Isabelle Huppert) becomes more and more addicted to the power she uses by sending powerful businessmen to jail; the second one is the wide-scale cynicalness of people involved in the scandal, used to play with public money and take advantage of this without seeing anything immoral.

A good movie, very funny because, as stated at the beginning "any similarity with real person or event would be, as it is said, fortuitousness".

Jan 7, 2007

In Comedy of Power, Isabelle Huppert plays Jeanne Charmant-Killman, a driven French investigating judge who is committed to rooting out systemic corporate corruption and bribery. As a judge and a woman, she finds herself lined up against entrenched old-boy attitudes and an acceptance of corporate corruption shared by most of the powerful older male characters including those in a position to influence her career.

Comedy of Power asks whether a woman in a position of power and influence can be effective and also have a life. Huppert is superb as the skinny workaholic Charmant-Killman (is this last name an intentional pun, I wonder). She has no time to eat or sleep, little or no empathy or tendresse and no time for her husband. It is difficult to decide where Chabrol comes out on the question of whether she is admirable for her determination and courage or despicable for her ambition and callousness. Perhaps, in just posing the question in such stark terms, Chabrol ultimately displays his own prejudice.

At the same time that Comedy of Power examines these somewhat cerebral questions, it also manages to keep us on the edge of our seat (not on a Hitchcockian level, but enough to make us flinch when the doorbell rings).

All in all, this was a very good movie.