That strange business term, “human resources,” has always had a slight Orwellian tinge to it. It was probably well-intended, but still, strange and mechanical.
The phrase gets top-billing in the new Israeli film “The Human Resources Manager,” a well-judged look at a job fulfilled to its nth d
egree. That job belongs to the nameless title character, played by weary-looking Mark Ivanir, who works for a large bakery in Jerusalem.
A public-relations nightmare looms after a company worker, an immigrant, dies as an innocent victim of a suicide bomber. Her employers did not actually notice she was missing for some days, which makes them look unfeeling and indifferent.
So the HR manager is ordered to personally accompany the coffin back to the dead woman’s native country. Surely this means he’ll simply show up at an airport, transfer his cargo to an official or family member and get back on a plane.
If it were that easy, we wouldn’t have a movie. “The Human Resources Manager” is shaped as a journey film, in which the manager is, initially, just as indifferent to the situation as his company is accused of being.
Having to slog across a post-Soviet Eastern European landscape, meeting various levels of bureaucratic red tape, the HR manager is forced to have an experience.
And even think about his own situation back home, too.
This film is directed by Eran Riklis, whose previous films, “Lemon Tree” and “The Syrian Bride,” became internationally successful, for good reason. If “The Human Resources Manager” feels more traditional, even a little more “Hollywood,” than those films, that’s not a bad thing.
It might be easier to predict the outcome of this movie than Riklis’ other films, but the manager’s journey is full of peculiar, nicely detailed incidents, and the location shooting in Israel and Romania — which can’t really be called “scenic” — always offers up authentic, little-seen places.
Everything is underlined by the violence of the employee’s senseless death in a bombing. Riklis doesn’t hammer home this aspect, but simply allows it to stay in our minds.
This week, another bomb went off at a bus station in Jerusalem, which puts that reality even more in the minds of new audiences for this thoughtful film.
“The Human Resources Manager” (3 stars)
The HR manager of a Jerusalem bakery must accompany the body of an employee (killed in a suicide bombing) back to the immigrant worker’s native country. Israeli director Eran Riklis makes this scenario an incident-filled journey, even if the end result can be predicted. In Hebrew and Romanian, with English subtitles.
Rated: Not rated; probably PG-13 for subject matter
Showing: Metro
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