04/04/2023 - Swann Arlaud dazzles in Mathias Gokalp’s fascinating film, adapted from the autobiographical story of Robert Linhart, a far-left philosophy teacher who infiltrated a factory in 1968

"I watch the worker as he labours, the workshop, the assembly line. I observe (…) Everyone’s first day in the factory is terrifying. Spending months and years in there is hard to imagine". It’s 12 September 1968 and we’re on the outskirts of Paris. The turbulence and exhilaration resulting from the events of May 68 still hover in the air, and far-left activists are getting jobs in factories undercover so as to share the workers’ fate and stir up social unrest. They’re known as "établis" and Robert Linhart, who’s due to take up a role as a university philosophy lecturer, is one of them. His experience resulted in a story which came to light in 1978 called L’établi, which inspired this captivating film (whose French version shares the same name) by Mathias Gokalp (his second feature film after The Ordinary People [+see also:
film review
trailer
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film profile], revealed in Cannes’ Critics’ Week in 2009). The Assembly Line [+see also:
trailer
film profile] is released in French cinemas on 5 April, courtesy of Le Pacte.

Bolts are tightened, doors are fitted… Citroën 2CVs advance relentlessly along the lengthy assembly line in the Porte de Choisy car plant. "You need to go faster", "hurry up, our bonuses will go up in smoke, thanks to you": it’s a painful learning curve for Robert (the brilliant Swann Arlaud) and, at the end of a three-day trial period, he only becomes a permanent employee through the indulgence of a director (Denis Podalydès) who feels sorry for him after hearing his “story” (he claims he has a diploma and that his father’s business in the provinces went bankrupt) and who hopes to recruit this candidate who’s so different from the usual immigrant workers (Italians, Yugoslavians, and folk from north and west Africa) making up the larger part of the factory’s blue-collar staff.

Thus, Robert immerses himself in an environment wholly at odds with the overwhelmingly bourgeois Parisian apartment he returns home to each evening (which he shares with his wife – played by Mélanie Thierry – who shares his idealist and radical militancy, and their young daughter who they’re raising in a revolutionary spirit). The months pass and the work is consuming them physically and mentally under the yoke of the foremen when, in mid-January of 1969, an opportunity to strike arises: question marks are raised over the paid overtime which was ratified by the Grenelle Agreements at the end of May 68. Meetings in the café ensue, alongside fiery discussions, an evaluation of possible consequences (the French trade union rep - Olivier Gourmet – is against all action, concluding that the price to pay to defend their principles would be too high for those with families to feed), a plan of action ("halt the great assembly line"), uncertainty over the number of workers who will join them and the pressure the factory management and the police might exert… On 18 February, the die is cast and the strike begins, but the position Robert must take between his two social classes isn’t always easy to assume…

Glancing in the rear-view mirror of recent history and boasting nigh-on documentary-like precision,Mathias Gokalp sheds light on a time we often tend to mythologise and look back on with nostalgia, but which actually chimes far more than you’d imagine with the current social situation at play. Carried by an effective screenplay (penned by the director alongside Nadine Lamari and Marcia Romano), despite its slight tendency to sugar-coat undeniably bitter experiences, The Assembly Line is an informative and engaging movie which provides Swann Arlaud with a wonderful role and which also showcases a number of lesser known actors (notably Raphaëlle Rousseau, Robin Migné, Luca Terracciano, Éric Nantchouang, Malek Lamraoui and Félix Vannoorenberghe).

The Assembly Line was produced by Karé Productions in co-production with France 2 Cinéma, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Cinéma and Belgium’s Scope Pictures. International sales fall to Indie Sales.

(Translated from French)