With his expression of thoughtful weariness and a face that inevitably brings to mind the word “hangdog,” Vincent Lindon owns every moment of Stéphane Brizé’s recession-era morality play The Measure of a Man (La loi du marché). As protagonist Thierry Taugourdeau, Lindon, who won Best Actor at Cannes and a César for his performance, is expertly nuanced in the role, frequently silent but always comprehensible, a downtrodden Everyman.
The eviction/foreclosure resistance movement in the Twin Cities is strong and growing. It represents not only the spreading of direct action tactics against corporate greed, but also a rare and important development in community solidarity.
As nearly anyone in Minneapolis, and quite a few outside of the area, knows, a person named Rosemary Williams has become something of a touchstone for this resistance.
In every life, I imagine, there comes a moment of shock and self-awareness, a moment when one realizes it’s impossible to go on this way. Maybe not every life – perhaps some people can maintain a cool distance forever, excusing away the small incongruities and the cognitive dissonance.