The Human Question

The Dark Knight” continues to dominate theatre attendance in its second week of release. Despite having ticket sales drop by more than half from its opening weekend, it took in more than double its nearest competitor, the opening weekend of “Step Brothers,” and over four times the third-place “Mamma Mia!” whose income dropped by only about a third for its second week.

Rounding out the top five, the new X-Files movie barely outgrossed the third weekend of “Journey to the Center of the Earth” and had a weaker per-screen average.

Heath Ledger aside, the flashy action sequences and special effects doubtless draw much of the audience for “The Dark Knight,” but more thoughtful viewers can appreciate the story’s ambivalent presentation of a corrupt, crime-plagued society’s self-doubts on how best to eliminate undesirable elements that are trying to destroy it from the inside.

The film’s ultimate belief in human goodness and in society’s desperate need for admirable heroes helps soften its dark view of modern life and make it connect with audiences.

A similar philosophy but a much darker view of modern civilization pervades the French film “Heartbeat Detector.” Also known as “La Question Humaine,” ("The Human Question"), it made the rounds of film festivals last year, was released in Europe last fall and New York this spring, and just came out on DVD last week.

The somewhat misleading English language title comes from information the film’s troubled protagonist uncovers towards the end of the plot, but serves as a metaphor for its original title and central issue.

Director Nicholas Klotz’s “Heartbeat Detector” is a modern corporate thriller set in Europe, presented alternately as an engrossing mystery and a stagnant slice of life about stagnant lives.

A company psychologist (Mathieu Amalric), admired for his carefully worded criteria that led to some swift, extensive, and highly profitable corporate downsizing, is asked confidentially to investigate his company’s CEO (Michael Lonsdale).

On the surface, the psychologist sees his job as boosting the morale of the workers, mostly nameless executives, and recognizing the most promising job applicants, so that their sense of well-being and advancement will lead to increased productivity.

The more he digs into the past of the corporate officers, however, the more we see how empty all their lives truly are, including his own, and the more troubled both he and others become from his discoveries. Who is blackmailing or undermining whom, and why?

Descendents of officers, collaborators, or genetic programs of Nazi Germany, whether willingly or unwittingly, have found themselves in positions of power where their decisions are based on carefully and neutrally worded statistics.

Efficient corporate policies may not be transporting “undesirables” to gas chambers in 2008, but the toll such ruthless power takes on both those who enforce it and those it is enforced upon is little different now than it was in 1942.

And might it just be possible that the real responsibility for the hated and repudiated Nazi regime was not the demands of a madman running the country, but merely traditional corporate efficiency taken to its extreme?

How can people in charge deal with their decisions and justify them to themselves? To what extent is this happening in modern society and how far will it go?

These are the themes at the core of “Heartbeat Detector.” The film’s style and pacing are likely to alienate typical mass-market audiences, however. Several extremely slow and drawn-out segments, including some extended musical performances, help establish mood but appear to have no bearing on the development of the plot.

Supporting characters’ backstories and motivations are sketchy or absent.

Some critics have aptly compared the film to early Godard. Viewers who can stick with the story to the end will find that it eventually builds to a showdown scene between the protagonist and his elusive adversary, bringing the film to a powerful and moving conclusion.

The DVD from New Yorker Video has a very good transfer of both picture and sound. Unfortunately the only bonus feature is a theatrical trailer, although the printed box insert gives a web address for a May 2008 “Film Comment” article on the director’s work.