174. Belgian directors Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne’s francophone film “Two Days, One Night” (Deux jours, une nuit) (2014): Ethics and self-interest in a job-insecure world
T he Dardenne brothers’ work Two Days, One Night is typical of a movie that makes you think beyond its apparent light-hearted positive ending that closes a tense and bleak scenario of sudden impending unemployment. It is a film that makes the viewer ponder if a positive ending is indeed so beyond what the film’s official ending suggests for the viewer’s benefit. More importantly, the film presents a grim situation that could be universal in democratic environs. The facts are stacked against the film’s protagonist Sandra (Marion Cotillard) in Two Days, One Night . Sandra, a factory worker, has been hospitalized for depression and has now been discharged to resume work. While she is on leave getting treated, her employer who runs a solar panel manufacturing plant, realizes that his company needs to tweak its workforce to stay profitable and a sick employee like Sandra is not helping matters. One way out for the employer would be lay-off Sandra and ask the other employers to work more ho...