1. Today in class, Dylan said she felt no connection to Sandra—yet felt empathy for her. Kayla went farther and said she didn't like Sandra. I liked her—I grew to love her in the way we can for characters in movies. But I also didn't find Brian pervvy in Middle of Nowhere. I think the Dardenne brothers would have no issue with either Kayla or Dylan's feelings about their character. So for a minute, assume that the film doesn't necessarily want us to feel connected or even like its protagonist. How could that work to the film's benefit? Or why might the directors deliberately desire that effect? What purpose can it serve for the film for us to feel distanced from Sandra?
2. Who is the villain in the film? Or what is the villain in the film? How do we know this? What scene or moment best supports your answer–and how so?
3. I called this a political film. What does that mean to you in this context? Explain your answer.
200 words. Really investigate these questions. Tomorrow, for a major change of pace...
See you then!
1. The filmmakers made a movie about normal working class people. This is apparent in the regular unflattering clothing, lack of makeup, and mannerisms of the people. I think that the watcher not necessarily liking the protagonist plays to the films benefit because the film makers are making a hyper realistic film about realistic people, and realistically we do not like everyone. This also relates to how the co-workers might feel, and helps up better understand the situation. Without falling in love with some larger than life crazy character the viewer empathizes with Sandra even though she is entirely normal, and not incredibly likable, just like the co-workers empathize (or don't) with her. In general by having Sandra as a normal not necessarily likable character we get a more realistic film. Also it puts the question of money versus people into harsher light because it draws the question that even if we don't like someone should we still pick a bonus over their job. I think that by creating a normal character that we are unconnected from, the film makers elevate the question, because the viewer realizes that she is still more important than the bonus even if she is not some crazy amazing charismatic person.
ReplyDelete2. I think the villain in the film is definitely Jean Marco. I think we know this because the reiteration throughout the film of Jean Marco meddling around to get Sandra fired and scaring the workers. Also when we heard about one of the workers being scared about his contract being renewed if he did not vote against Sandra because of Jean Marco intimidating him. The scene that best supports this answer is when Jean Marco confronts Sandra in the hallway and blames her for stirring up the situation after he was the one that created the problem.
3. This could be seen as a political film because of its social commentary on mental illness in the workforce and how it is dealt with, and also deeper issues within the workforce in general.
1) If viewers watching the movie realize they don’t connect with Sandra but still disagree with her circumstances, it emphasizes the unfairness of her position. If we feel objective because we don’t care particularly for Sandra but we still believe she deserves a job, we believe everyone should see things our way because we are supposedly neutral. The film benefits because people support the conclusion because it rejects the unfairness in the system even if Sandra isn’t given a stable future.
ReplyDelete2) The villain in the film is a bit abstract but the villain to me is Dumont (?) / whoever their boss was that made them choose. Jean Marco was clearly influential and threatening but it’s not up to him. We know this because in the final scene the boss says that he will let go of someone else to smooth tension in the office. He doesn’t care about what Sandra went through or the weight of his decision on someone’s life. He only cares that he had effective workers which also reflects Sandra’s struggle to function as expected in society with her mental illness inhibiting her.
3) This is political in the sense that it touches on political issues such as healthcare, mental illness, the workforce, and the economy. It’s also political in that it’s all about the workforce dynamics. It’s about the debate among individuals, which is the definition of politics. They were debating the decision among each other and everyone was making a decision that was ultimately determined by the higher-ups. The willingness of others to choose showed the power of those in charge. The movie is political because it is about the debate over who decides whether Sandra leaves or stays and people chose opposing positions and campaign. Issues and opinions over lap but the film is political because it shows the conflict so clearly and honestly.
1. One reason I enjoyed this movie so much is because of the question it poses. Throughout the course of the film I kept wondering to myself what I would do if I were put in the position of Sandra's coworkers. Would I take the bonus to help my family, or help Sandra? I'm not sure if this was the goal of the filmmakers, but if it was, I think that making the viewers feel distant from Sandra really made that question more difficult for us to think about. Because of this effect, I think viewers can put themselves in each sides' shoes much better with no real bias towards the protagonist. If this was the director's purpose, I think it worked well. I personally felt a connection with Sandra and her struggles, but if I didn't, then the question would be even more prevalent on what I would do and who I would side with.
ReplyDelete2. I would say that the only real villains in the film are the people that openly try to attack Sandra and her cause. Jean Marc, her boss, is a perfect example of this. He repeatedly tries to influence the ballot so he gets the bonus. Like Sandra tells him, he is really heartless. And, the coworker who Sandra approaches about voting for her and who makes Sandra feel useless is also the villain in the film. I get that he needs the money, but he is cold for directly attacking her like he did. I do not think the coworkers who vote against her are all the villains, though. While watching it, it was difficult to view them as such, but I began to realize that they mean no harm by not voting for her; they simply need the money for the family. Do I think what they did was right? Not at all. But I can not blame them for choosing the bonus instead of her job when they are counting on it to survive.
3. I could view the film as a political because of how it talks about companies treatment of its workers. The main way the directors do this is by showing that Sandra was fired and seen as incapable of working because of her past mental health issues. Also, I think the film comments on the middle class in the country. Through the lens of Sandra we see how many people are struggling for jobs and money. The middle class may not be as strong as people think, as seen by how desperate the characters in the film are by needing all the money they can get, even at the cost of their coworker and friend.
1. I think that Sandra doesn’t need to be liked because at times she doesn’t really like herself or the position that she’s in. Sandra struggles with depression and she frequently wants to give up and not take care of herself, and it gets to the point where she doesn’t care about herself so much that she considers and briefly attempts suicide. Sandra also doesn’t want to go around like a beggar asking people to vote for her and she says at several points that she does not want pity. Sandra does not want people to look down on her and belittle her. Sandra doesn’t need to be liked because she doesn’t need to be liked in order for the audience to understand her situation and her thinking. Like Dylan, it’s possible to empathize without feeling a connection to Sandra or liking her.
ReplyDelete2. If I had to choose a character to be the villain it would be Dumont or Jean-Marc. Dumont more so because he is the root of the problem. Dumont is the one who gives the ultimatum, bonus or Sandra. Jean-Marc just fuels the fire and the animosity among coworkers. Why can’t Dumont just make the executive decision instead of forcing his coworkers to decide between a bonus or firing someone (when he knows how much they make) and let human nature just take over and create more drama and stress than there needs to be. Again, Dumont knows how much his employees make obviously and so how can he present this option to people who he could probably assume need/want the money. Then in the end when Dumont offers Sandra her job back when the boy’s job expired, he puts Sandra in the exact position that her former coworkers had just been in seconds ago. Dumont promotes this hostile environment in his workplace which is pretty villainous to me.
3. One of the reviews compare the film to another movie Lincoln. I think that Sandra does campaign in a way and fight for her job which might be similar to the way a politician campaigns and fights, but I think it could be a political movie in a different sense. The movie brings up the very important issue of mental health and shows how Sandra is put at a great disadvantage due to her mental health issues. Sandra almost loses her job because of time off she took in order to try and get better. Coworkers talk about how she might be less capable of the work now that she’s been “sick.” All of these problems are presented without going into major depth about each one but all of them are good points to make. The film starts a conversation about mental health and societal issues surrounding it.
1. I think if we don’t really like Sandra, that’s fine, because that’s real life. The purpose of Sandra was not to make a person everyone likes (like in most American hero movies), but to show a regular woman who people may or may not like. She’s not trying to impress people, she’s being her true self, the way she acts when she has no one around her she has to make like her. They might have even tried to make her less likable because if you understand and empathize with this realistic woman in the movie who you don’t really like, you can apply that to real life and try to empathize with people even if you don’t like them. Our distance from Sandra makes us realize how her situation is unfair for anyone to experience, whether we like them or not.
ReplyDelete2. I think that her boss was posed as the villain as every time she met someone she said how her boss had influenced people into making their decision and had scared coworkers into deciding to take the bonus. He was the one who forced the decision between a bonus and Sandra. Scenes that support that are every time she talked to someone and started talking about her boss. However, at the end of the day, the real villain was money. The money was the evil thing that forced kind people into making decisions that made them feel horrible. Money makes people act in horrible ways, especially to protect their own family or well being.
3. For me this could be a political film because it is about the social condition of people being obsessed with money or feeling trapped by money, and choosing it over sacrificing for a neighbor. It also made me have mixed emotions and was a great example of morality, so it goes along with the definition of a political film. I think the way our world is now where we are so trapped by having to choose ourselves and our families over others so that we stay afloat is terrible and is an attribute to our time.
1. The Dardenne brothers created this film with an emphasis on realism. It hold nothing back in how real each character is, and never resorts to expositive dialogue. So, the unlikability of Sandra fits in with reality of this film, as people don't like everyone they meet in the real world. Not only does her portrayal purposely provoke a different response in each of us (I personally liked her), it also lets us have our own unique perspective on her situation. I agree with Anna and Matt, in that this film does make you question whether or not you would help her. So a neutral/negative view of her character lets you know that anyone deserves their job in that situation (of course only if you think she should have the job and you don't like her).
ReplyDelete2. The true villain of 'Two Days, One Night' is greed. The only thing holding back the main character from getting their goal (Sandra's job), is the greed that the other characters have for money. It's only the greed of the people Sandra talks to that keeps them from voting to give up that bonus. Each character (that votes for the bonus) feels that their needs are greater than hers. For instance, that one guy who punched that other guy was fueled by his greed for money. Without that greed, he would have understood her position and voted for her to keep her job.
3. This film is political in many ways, broadly, this film is about power. The higher ups in the company have power and control over their workers, yet they allow a democratic form of 'government' to determine the outcome of this specific conflict. The first form of voting is done with a sense of political corruption, as it is stated many times that Jean Marco influenced the view of the workers (by saying someone would get fired if Sandra didn't). The second vote is a more democratic system, and Sandra is allowed to go 'campaigning' to her coworkers. This film touches on democracy, corruption, societal influences, and the economic stability of middle class workers. Which all make it a political film in my book.
ReplyDelete1.If the directors of the film did not want us to like Sandra's character it could do two things. In one way it would help us see things from the points of view of the other characters in the film and bring up interesting issues such as even if you don't particularly like someone can you still sympathize with them enough to give up a raise for their well being. It could bring us into the shoes of the workers making this decision and have the audience pose it on themselves. Another reason to dislike her character might be to show the severity and therefore dislike of her situation. If we don't like Sandra, we it makes us think more about her illness and if that is why we don't like her. It gives the though that maybe the severity of her mental health and then job issues has left her unlikable. Also having a main character who isn't cookie-cutter likeable and has certain traits that make her unlikeable, or human, it makes a more realistic film and her a more realistic character.
2.I think the villain in this movie is Jean Marc because the most negativity revolves around him. He lies to his employees so Sandra will get fired and then blames Sandra for causing a mess for fighting for her job back. Throughout the movie, for every person Sandra talks to, she mentions the need for a re-vote because of Jean Marc's pressuring. This is a constant reminder that we shouldn't like Jean Marc and throughout the whole movie I hated Jean Marc even though we never actually saw him until the end and then I hated him some more. He also is said to have talked about how she is unfit to work because of her recent illness. Throughout the whole movie even when individual workers vote against Sandra, we sympathize with some of them as we see they have kids and side jobs at home and clearly need the money. We don't see any sympathy for Jean Marc.
3.I think this is a political film because it says a lot about mental health issues and how they are dealt with in the workplace and in the home. We see the dynamics of this topic in accordance of Sandra trying to go back to work after her depression and many being skeptical of her. We see the home dynamic with her husband and her constant need for medication.
1. Not particularly liking Sandra is very beneficial to this kind of film. First off it balances the movie, because this is an extremely depressing movie and if you are attached to Sandra and really like her it could be very depressing. I didn't like Sandra so when her life went downhill I was sad for her, but I myself wasn't sad. Not liking Sandra is also beneficial because it paints more of a realistic picture to understanding both sides of the film. Since I wasn't too fond of Sandra, when people told her they couldn't vote for her I understood their reasoning instead of hyper focusing on the way Sandra must feel. Not liking Sandra also helps Two Days, One Night because it doesn't make her the hero in the viewers eyes. Although there is a villain in the movie there was no hero, making the film even more realistic. Liking Sandra could turn her into the hero and everyone not voting for her the villain, making it a less realistic movie, but more dramatic.
ReplyDelete2. The villain in this film is definitely Jean Marco. We know he is the villain because he is the main influence to Sandra's coworkers to get her fired. One scene that best illustrates Jean Marco's foul behavior was something that wasn't witnessed by Sandra or the audience, but was told to Sandra by a friend. Sandra found out that Jean Marco was influencing coworkers to vote for money by telling them false information that they would be fired if she wasn't. Jean Marco also called Sandra's coworkers over the weekend when they could vote again, to convince them not the vote for her. This shows that Jean Marco was a large contributing factor to Sandra loosing her job.
3. This is a political film because it has a social statement to make. It comes across as political because it deals with power, and mental illness. Since Sandra was out of work for awhile due to her mental illness Jean Marco is more powerful then her. He was a stronger influence on her coworkers, being able to persuade them to choose money over a friend, forcing Sandra who needed this job to possibly move out of her house.
1. I think that enables the audience to look at the circumstance more critically. Liking Sandra might obscure the meaning of the movie or maybe make it difficult for us to see things from the perspective of her coworkers and friends. And I think those perspectives were important to show that their intentions weren't for Sandra to lose her job, and that they were in equally, if not worse, situations that didn't allow for them to choose not to take the bonus. I think creating this distance almost parallels what the coworkers might be feeling toward Sandra, this sort of detachment where you wish you could help someone even if you don't know them very well. For me, pretending to not like Sandra enabled me to look at other views and to consider things from the other side.
ReplyDelete2. I guess you could say that the villain was Jean Marco. He encouraged Sandra's coworkers to take the bonus and ultimately get Sandra fired, but I also think the villain in this movie was life. I don't think there was any one person who you could blame for Sandra losing her job, I just think that's the way some things go. There were more than one coworker valuing the bonus over Sandra's position, but this doesn't necessarily mean their intention was to get her laid off. Everyone was just trying to survive, even if it was at the expense of others. Sometimes life is really hard and seems to only get harder even when it seems you're at your lowest point, but that's the way things are sometimes and there's no one who's at fault. It's just life and sometimes life is difficult.
3. I agree that this was a political film because of its explication of mental illness in the work force. I think it also drew attention to the different classes and the fact that the majority of the people were struggling to get by.
1.What makes this movie powerful is not just Sandra's story. It is the understanding of the hard times everyone goes through. If we connect too much with her, it's possible to see the people who want the bonus as the villains. This is not the desired effect. We are supposed to see Anne's husband as bad, but not Julien. Since the movie is about a community struggling through the eyes of one person, it's a mistake to be too connected with that single person.
ReplyDelete2. That's tough, initially it might seem to be Jean-Marc, but his confusion and denial of trying to influence people throws that into question. There are three groups competing for money, and not all can have enough: the company, the workers, and Sandra. Depending on which character you look at, there's a case for any of these to be the villain. Maybe the economy? Sandra's depression? There isn't really one character you can point to as the villain, but rather the system that can't give enough money to everyone.
3. It exposes a problem. In this case, it looks at the issues of mental health and the lower middle class struggle to pay the bills. These are challenges that are not covered as often in mainstream movies. It looks at Sandra's depression in detail to show that to a larger audience. It shows a world where everyone is struggling to make ends meet.
1. I think that the directors deliberately made her a common everyday person which allows for a watcher not to like her. I think that since I didn't really like her I saw the views of other people in the movie more and I definitely saw both sides. I did feel bad for her but when she didn't get her job back I didn't feel anything which is probably how the workers who didn't vote for her felt.
ReplyDelete2. The villain in Jean Marc. He's the person who won't let Sandra keep her jobs and also have the others keep the bonuses. It is also mentioned that he thought Sandra couldn't work because she was mentally ill in the past. I think the scene that shows he's the villain is when all the workers are voting and it's just him and Sandra talking. I think he called her a bitch and then she called him heartless which I liked because it's showed her growth.
3. I think it could be political because if the idea of mental health issues in the work place. Some people don't recognize the significance of mental health because it's not always physical pain so it's not always taken seriously. This movie definitely raises a serious question about the ability of someone who has been through mental health. There was a moment in the movie where someone compared being in a accident and recovering to Sandra having depression and recovering which I think is true. Of course people could relapse or they could not but I don't think businesses should judge anyone based on that.
1. I suppose the greater the distance from Sandra, the easier it is for us to sympathize with her coworkers’ reasoning for choosing the bonus over her. Then again, like John, I grew to love her so I don’t really know how her story would feel if I didn’t. We’re dropped into her life with no context, no backstory, no nothing to help us understand what’s going on with her, why she’s so…weary. We don’t get to see her fired, a sure in to our sympathies, nor do we see her interact much with her children, an in to any woman’s maternal instinct, nor do we get flashbacks of how she was before her depression had escalated. We are given no reason, no ploy to feel attached to her either through sympathy or empathy, yet we come to know her and care about her story, because she’s real; she’s a person, a human, who, once we know, we cannot deny the importance of. It’s easy to write someone off as being good or evil, worthy or not, when we don’t know them, don’t understand them, yet the moment they become real to us, so does their plight. I may not like everyone I know, but I care for them, and I care about what happens to them because they’re people. Donald Trump is not a person to me, but my racist Uncle Tom is, and somehow—even if they believe the same things, I care about one and not the other. One is human and the other is image. We cannot care for an image. We cannot know a picture on a screen, but Sandra is so much more than a picture. She was a person, a beautiful, flawed person.
ReplyDelete2. I completely get saying Dumont is the villain in that he is the one pitting her job against the bonuses, but I suppose even his decision to do that makes some sense given the difficulty of the market he’s working in and the fact that their team does, indeed, work as well with 16 people as it did with 17. So, in that sense, I think the villain is more just circumstance. The employees Sandra goes to visit are certainly victims of circumstance; they don’t want her to be fired, but they need their bonuses, and they’re not the ones who issued the ultimatum. I think we see that in every character, but perhaps the most striking to me was soccer coach because he was the first we’d seen who the decision was killing. He wasn’t cold or hard like the first couple, but he voted the same way as them initially.
3. As we were watching her go door to door, I couldn’t help being reminded of going canvassing with my mom and sister for Hillary. Sandra’s fight, like all other campaigns, comes down to individuals, and these individuals have been given a particularly difficult choice. That’s how I saw this as being political originally, but The idea of mental health in the workplace is also a prevalent issue in today’s world, so I could see this being read that way.
1. The directors may have deliberately made Sandra a not very likable because they wanted to have the watcher feel an emotional connection to all of the characters instead of seeing a right and a wrong character. I think it was important to do this because the people who she was trying to persuade were clearly in a tough spot. We weren't supposed to feel empathetic for just one character, but for all of them. Although there were a few who came about telling her that they weren't voting in a very offensive and rude way, it was clear that none of them were completely financially stable and felt as though they deserved the bonus, since Sandra hadn't been at work for a long time. This is much like real life, because in order to get by, it's necessary for people to see both sides of each story given the circumstances. In a way, making her less like able was more realistic, since she had flaws like everyone else.
ReplyDelete2. Jean-Marc was no doubt the villain in the film. He was repeatedly brought up throughout the film about how he lied to their coworkers and painted her as a bad person to persuade them to vote for the bonus. He had nothing against her and she had never did anything bad to him, and somehow he hated her and spread lies to her in an effort to get more money for himself. He was never remorseful and didn't care about her situation.
3. It would probably be political due to the stigma and oppression she faced when having to leave work to tend to her mental health. It exposes the issues within the workforce when it comes to mental health and how negatively its seen among coworkers and even bosses. He pitted her against other workers because of her situation, and Jean-Marc made people think she was unable to work because she was depressed. I think that political films pose a societal issue and expose how its dealt with in society. To see her being treated this way is eye opening, since she is shown no sympathy or help for her condition.