190. French director Stéphane Brizé’s “La loi du marché” (The Measure of a Man) (2015): Internalized reactions to jungle law of the market forces under economic gloom

E conomic stress can do strange things to an upright individual. Stéphane Brizé’s French film The Measure of a Man does not merely look at individuals who scramble for jobs to make a living, the film is equally a critical look at the human resource development teams that hire the workforce for their companies in trying times of low GDP growth. The film is set in France but the tale it presents is universal. The film entertains sensitive thinking viewers by providing options on personal ethics one has to adopt to bring home the bacon on the table under trying circumstances. The tale of The Measure of a Man revolves around Thierry (Vincent Lindon), a 51-year-old middle class man, with a wife and a differently-abled son. He has lost his previous job in which he evidently earned enough to own a trailer (a mobile home) to enjoy his holidays. We learn that Thierry has not lost his job because of inefficiency on his part but because his employers wanted to earn more with a leaner workf...