Customer Reviews

Heartbeat Detector

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2 star:		(1)
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This film paints a metaphor by constructing a story about music (as the human soul) in a big corporation (our society). And also proves one assertion that the recalling memories of the old sins never leave human being even if he is only a witness. So there is a Parisian psychologist (Mathieu Amalric) who is to follow one human fate only to discover the pain added on another pain and so on... He is on the way to resolve his own illusions or maybe only to make the first step to do so. We don't know a lot because some things in life happen in a darkness...

As consequence of a transcendental top management decision, a Parisian petrochemical company forges on into the 21st century, the human resources psychologist leads a probe that proves the ghosts of the previous century still hold sway over current events in director Nicolas Klotz's labyrinthine drama. Simon (Mathieu Amalric) is a human resources worker who has spent the last seven years working at the Paris branch of a powerful German-based company called SC Farb. In addition, to assessing the hiring and firing practices of the company, Simon was also charged with the task of conducting motivational workshops. When Assistant Director Karl Rose (Jean-Pierre Kalfon) implores Simon to conduct a clandestine assessment of firm director Mathias Jüst's (Michael Lonsdale) mental health after rumors of erratic behavior begin to circulate in the German head office, the shrewd human resources worker forms a factory orchestra as a means of stealthily gauging the stability of his violin-playing subject.

So, as the goal is undertaking, the complex limits between reality and insanity become more and more blurried, the dark web of intrigue continues increasing taking advantage even the very investigator.

Later, a comprehensive investigation of company archives and anonymous letters begin to snake ominously back in time to the darkest days of World War II.

A film that will fascinate to many, but at the same time can make others leave the hall, due the enormous concentration it demands.


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A film about the goings-on within a corporation from the perspective of the corporate psychologist, Kessler (Amalric). The corporate psychologist is responsible for helping to decide whom to hire, fire or reassign. It is revealed that Kessler's private life is in disarray; his relationship with the woman he loves is strained and he is having an affair with an aggressive woman at the office. Production is down and the CEOs are looking for ways to change that. Kessler wants to use music and bonding experiences to help increase production. He is also given the task of evaluating an executive, Juest (Lonsdale) who's behavior has become erratic. While investigating the profoundly sad Juest, Kessler finds there are terrible secrets involving certain corporate employees that go back to World War II. At one point Kessler reads a report written during World War II and it is a long description of the outfitting of trucks to kill their passengers with tailpipe exhaust. The report is written in a style that is absolutely chilling; it is the most effective scene in the film. After reading the report, Kessler sits on his bed and sobs. Later Kessler sets out to find the man who mailed anonymous letters to the corporate offices; it is a former employee, Neumann. Neumann was fired from the corporation and he's bitter about it. He compares Kessler's job of getting rid of non-productive employees with the Nazi extermination of undesirables. He compares the cold language used in the truck report to the cold language used by corporations regarding their employees.
Although the film was interesting to watch, it meandered a bit too much and I felt the scenes were not connected to each other very well. I think the film needed some additional editing, although perhaps some things are simply lost in translation. The performances of the actors were very good.

Maybe it's just me but the thread of the story was hard to follow. Certain scenes that didn't advance the plot lingered for too long. The result was a movie that didn't engage either my wife or I. It did lead to some interesting discussion afterward when we finally started to make sense of it.

Here's a movie with a serious theme, undone by the earnestness of the director and writer. We know how serious the theme is because it involves Nazi death camps, and not just as a reminder of what humans are capable of, but as an odd metaphor for humanity's current business conditions.

"Did you know," says one character, "we don't have poor people anymore? Only people on modest incomes. We no longer talk of "issues," such as social issues, but "problems" that our specialists split up into a series of technical details. For each one, they'll find the optimum solution."

That may or may not be true, depending on one's own social enthusiasms, but Nicolas Klotz, the director, and Elisabeth Perceval, the screenwriter, seem to be making the case that corporate downsizing is the moral equivalent of Nazi extermination actions. The parallel is not only grotesquely naive, but thickheadedly trivializes some of humanity's worst atrocities. One has to admire, and I mean this seriously, their earnestness, but their earnestness leads them into the fatal flaw of some artists: That their passion for social justice equates as artistic talent.

The Human Question (the English title, Heartbeat Detector, is confusing) gives us a good start. A corporate psychologist at SCFarb, a giant German company with a major Parisian subsidiary, is called upon by Karl Rose, the firm's deputy manager, to secretly report on the mental health of SCFarb's head, Mathias Just (Michael Lonsdale). Our man, Simon Kessler (Mathieu Amalric), is told that Just has been behaving erratically. Simon is given this assignment because of how effective and dedicated he had been in his role during a major downsizing. Simon gets more than he bargained for. He discovers something called the Farb Quartet, which several years ago played for employees. Just was the violinist. This gives him cover to meet with and evaluate Just to discuss the possibility of a Farb employee symphony. After two meetings and a visit to Just's home, it's clear to Simon that Just is exhausted, in the midst of some sort of crises and is racked by a deep sadness. And then Just tells Simon he knows all about Simon's assignment...and that Karl Rose was a child from a Nazi program to increase the numbers of Aryan children. Then there are the letters Just gives him, letters that talk about the role of Just's father at a death camp. This is followed by anonymous letters Simon begins to get which artfully combine sections of Simons recommendations for downsizing and old Nazi instructions for killing people.

And on it goes for nearly two-and-a-half hours. There is no drama to speak of, just lots of long takes, long monologues and long scenes. There are lots of secondary issues that move around without resolution. It takes 80 minutes to get to where tension in Simon's assignment starts to build and where we think there might be something wrong in the relationship between Just and Rose. It takes 95 minutes to get to the point of the movie...activities at Nazi extermination camps and the lack of emotion about how people are treated today. "The business world is unforgiving," says Just. "How do you reconcile `the human factor' with the company's need to make money?"

Some viewers become angry or sarcastic when faced with movies like this. My emotions are sadness and boredom. Sadness because the serious intent of the movie's creators exceeds their abilities. Boredom, because no matter how earnest the intent of a movie, a movie's first responsibility is to engage the viewer at some meaningful level, even if that level is based only on technique. For me, Heartbeat Detector missed that requirement, especially at the level of technique. But in an unintended bit of irony, we also figure out that being a company psychologist must require all the supple morals of a physician who assists in "robust" interrogations of prisoners. Michael Lonsdale, however, is a fine actor. It was almost worth seeing the movie to watch him.

The DVD is bare bones. It looks just fine except for some of the nighttime scenes when little can be made out.