Heartbeat Detector (2007)

Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

Brilliant and touching

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

I really did want to appreciate this movie for tackling a series of monumental subjects - corporate dehumanization, guilt by association (especially concerning the Holocaust), Orwellian destruction of meaningful language, and the fallibility of psychoanalysis. However, watching this made me realize why the similarly dense subject material from novelists like Don DeLillo and Thomas Pynchon rarely make it to the big screen is that they are much too diffuse, internal, and cerebral to even attempt in the plot-action-event world of film. I love film, and I love ideas, but all good film (even the most arty and pretentious) is about action first and ideas second. This film starts with the ideas and never lets the characters out from under them. A movie should never be about words, just as a novel should never have directions for camera angles.I can't make a conclusive evaluation of whether I loved it or hated it, so I give it a 5 out of 10. It fails in doing the impossible, so I have to give it some credit. This movie is a prime example of why some novels should never be made into films.

A highly intelligent, interesting film that does a great job of showing the impact that the ripples of Nazi Germany still have on the modern world. It's half a study of that, half a character study of Mathieu Amalric's character, a psychologist for a large, anonymous company. This character is completely breaking down throughout the film as a result of living in such a shady, paranoia filled society. I have to admit that there is some stuff that went over my head. There's a subplot involving an almost underground society of these business types who take these boats to a place where they pop drugs and rave. I'm sure that the whole thing has a symbolic meaning but for me it just provided a stunning catharsis and more depth into Amarlic's character. His performance in the film is absolutely stunning. It's a very quiet, subtle portrayal that is one of the most...calculated performances I've seen in quite a while. You can tell that he put so much thought into every move that the character makes. Every turn of the body, slight movement of the eyes, it's all important for the performance. But the genius of him as an actor is that you realize he is putting importance into all of those moments, but he is so great at putting himself into the character that you just think it's important for the character and don't think about the man acting as the character until after the film is over. A very intelligent, complex performance in an intelligent, complex film.

If I am tired and want some mind-numbing entertainment, I don't mind a film that presents its issues in black and white - the baddies are bad, the goodies are good and the moral dilemmas are no more taxing than first grade arithmetic.Heartbeat Detector does not fall into that category. It is not entertainment. Everything about it says this is a film to think about and take seriously. The web of lies, the conflicts between different players' sense of reality, they all cry out to us: art-house, subtlety, layers of meaning. How disappointing then that the film gradually degenerates into a simplistic (and false) moral message.The true awfulness of the film is only discovered at the very end when the final scene thrusts its trite moral message upon us in a way that clearly implies (I won't spoil it for you by saying how) that the viewer is being blessed with an earth-shattering profundity. In fact it is nothing more profound than a reminder of something which has been presented in the cinema many times before, and presented with more artistry, subtley and ambiguity. I am being a bit cryptic to avoid giving it all away. Surprise is the one good thing about the ending and if I removed that, nothing good would remain.The film has other flaws too, already discussed by other reviewers, but I give it 4 stars because I agree with some of the positive comments made.

This is an abominable film whose premise is a vile attempt to link the inhumanity of the holocaust with the inhumanity of corporate business.Only a pretentious left wing French pseudo-intellectual neo-feminist could conflate the behaviour of men in suits with that of men in Nazi uniforms. Elisabeth Perceval (whoever she is) has come up with a richesse d'embarras which has to be suffered to be believed.What is ironically amusing is that the film is set in France, where the power of the unions has cosseted the workforce to levels undreamed of in the rest of the Western World. With their protected 35 hour maximum working week, job security, pension and health-care privileges, impromptu blockades and strikes, the French worker can feel himself perhaps a little more empowered than the average internee in Nazi Germany.Finally as to the semiotic rubbish which reaches its portentous climax at the closing blank screen voice-over, I would point out that we live in an age where we agonise endlessly to find appropriate signifiers which will not offend or dehumanise the hoi polloi. You won't find "janitors" any more, they are "site managers". There are hospital wards for "older people" (not "Geriatric" or "old") and the oppressive servitude implied by "personnel manager" has been replaced with the touchy feely "human resources executive". Personally, I think it would be quite fun to be called a "Unit".Having said all that though, a French film totally devoid of any wit or humour whatsoever for its entire 140 minute duration deserves some kind of recognition.