The most recent film from Greek-born director Costa-Gavras, best known for Z<\/i> (1969), State of Siege<\/i> (1972) and Missing<\/i> (1982), is Capital,<\/i> a scathing assault on the world of financial speculation. The work is based on the 2004 novel by St\u00e9phane Osmont, reportedly the pseudonym of a major \u201cinsider\u201d in the French banking industry.<\/p>\n
Capital<\/i><\/b> <\/b><\/p>\n
In Costa-Gavras\u2019s film, a powerful French bank faces an internal crisis following the heart attack of its CEO. A rising star, Marc Tourneuil (Gad Elmaleh), is put in charge, because leading forces on the board think he\u2019s controllable, and expendable.<\/p>\n
Tourneuil has his own ideas, and enters into ambiguous relations with ruthless US hedge fund manager Dittmar Rigule (Gabriel Byrne). After promising employees on a worldwide video conference a voice in how the bank is run, the new CEO turns around and destroys 10,000 jobs, demanding and receiving a large \u201clayoff bonus\u201d from the bank\u2019s board.<\/p>\n
Various plots and counterplots unfold, as different factions slug it out in Capital<\/i> for control of the French bank and supremacy in the global financial markets. At one point, Tourneuil, a latter-day \u201cRobin Hood,\u201d proposes a toast, \u201cWe\u2019ll continue to rob the poor to give to the rich.\u201d He also memorably proclaims, \u201cLuxury is a right.\u201d<\/p>\n
Eventually, a brilliant Asian expert at the bank, Maud Baron (Celine Sallette), is na\u00efve enough to propose that Tourneuil expose the illegal wheeling and dealing in a book. He doesn\u2019t take her up on that, but the notion that a zealous crusader could upset the financial apple-cart hovers around the film, as does the suspicion that a good deal of the filthiness on display stems merely from unregulated \u201cneo-liberalism\u201d or \u201ccowboy capitalism.\u201d<\/p>\n
That unprincipled, greedy men and women are largely to blame for a good deal of the world\u2019s problems and that they ought to and can be exposed by crusading individuals (who, an unkind critic might suggest, bear more than a passing resemblance to the figure of the filmmaker him- or herself) is a conception that seems to guide, semi-consciously or otherwise, a number of the current films on the subject of Wall Street and related issues.<\/p>\n
*************<\/p>\n
Directed by Costa-Gavras; written by Karim Boucherka, Costa-Gavras, Jean-Claude Grumberg, based on a novel by St\u00e9phane Osmont.<\/i> The following is a slightly edited comment on<\/i> Capital, directed by Costa-Gavras, which was posted<\/a> <\/i>as part of the 2012 Toronto film festival. The film opened in the US on October 25 [2013].<\/i><\/p>\n