French social cinema practically qualifies as its own genre at this point, with the brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne being perhaps its foremost practitioners. Rennes-born filmmaker Stéphane Brizé is himself not a stranger to this particular kind of cinema, having explored it to varying degrees in films like “Not Here To Be Loved” (about a middle-aged paper-pusher’s dreary existence) and “A Few Hours of Spring” (about a violent man who moves back in with his mother after a prison stint). And it would appear that he’s not quite done with this particular creative terrain, as here we are with the English-language trailer for his newest film, the ground-level drama “The Measure of a Man.”
Brizé’s sixth picture screened at Cannes last year to mostly favorable notices, with our own Jessica Kiang giving ‘Man’ an A-, praising the film’s “sly, incisive humanism” and even going so far as to say that it “makes you want to be a kinder person.” Sounds like the kind of film we need more of, no?
In any case, this is a pretty great trailer: short and lyrical, but distinguished by an understated sadness and what looks to be a pretty killer performance from leading man Vincent Lindon, who took home the Best Actor award from Cannes (where it also earned a Special Mention from the Ecumenical Jury) and at the César Awards.
Kino Lorber will release the picture later this year. Watch the trailer below.