karin viard

The Axe

by
Bruno with a gun in his car

What is a man in capitalism if not his job? Costa-Gavras asked the question in The Axe (Le couperet) in 2005 in much the same way that Park Chan-wook did in 2025’s No Other Choice. Both are working from the same source material – Donald Westlake’s novel The Ax. Both come to pretty much the same conclusion – shorn of his job and his title, a male in this situation loses his status and becomes dangerously unmoored. This, both conclude, is not a good thing. The stories are similar right down to the little details. A man who works as an executive for a paper company gets made redundant and cannot find other … Read more

The New Eve

by
Karin Viard and Pierre-Loup Rajot

You might be tempted re-translate a title like that (in its original French: La Nouvelle Eve) as “Women Today, Huh”, and watch the film as a portrait of, well, you follow my drift. Played by Karin Viard, our heroine Camille is a neurotic ball of angst, a woman on a quest for happiness, and hang the cost to others. The film opens with Camille at a party of almost comical anything-goesness, but even she pushes it too far – finally throwing up on her host’s bed after having done all the drugs and all the genders in a night of excess. After that, for Camille it’s a series of pffts to the niceties … Read more