Humain, trop humain (1974)

Directors:

Louis Malle
René Vautier

Genre:

Documentary

Also Known As:

A Human Condition (UK)
Human, Too Human

Runtime:

75 min

Country:

France

Language:

French

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Mono

Company:

Nouvelles Éditions de Films (NEF)

Good, but too long

This documentary is an interesting look at the people who work on the assembly lines of French automobile factories.

To the credit of cinematographer Etienne Becker and director Louis Malle, several details of the assembly line, the input of each worker, the body movements (lilt of a heel or the pouting of lips) are captured honestly and seemingly unobtrusively. To Malle's credit, the sound is limited to production sound--the workers seem to be mute. Voices invade the film once during the segment on the sale of the cars to customers at a car show.

Malle's film, screened as part of a Malle retrospective at the 11th International Film Festival of Kerala, is a veiled comment on automation and its effects on people. The film ends with a frozen shot of a woman worker absorbed in the life within the factory. The life outside seems to be deliberately snipped off--but we know it exists. Malle was probably stating that human beings are getting to be dehumanized and living the life of "an assembly line." That said, the film could have said the same things in a third of the total run-time. Compare Malle's film to Bert Hanstra's documentary on glass blowers called "Glas" (1958). Made 16 years before "Humain, trop humain", Bert Haanstra's work, which uses music, is far superior to this one on a somewhat similar subject.