A drone shot of the Parisian skyline opens the documentary Le Chantier, directed by Jean-Stéphane Bron – which has just premiered out of competition at the Locarno Film Festival – before zoning in on a century-old, crumbling building which has already been hollowed out from the inside. The construction vehicles are already there, as are the workers who operate them. Thanks to Adrien Cannepin and Pierre-Louis Clairin’s sound design, the noise they make seems excruciating, but communication between the workers carries on during work and breaks alike.

From the opening shots, we understand that this is a project both large and complex, but it’s only later on that we learn it’s the location for the new headquarters of French company Pathé, which will be composed of a multitude of cinemas on the lower floors, and company and co-working office space on the top floors. Combining legacy materials, like wood and stone, with new ones, such as steel and glass, the building was designed by the legendary architect Renzo Piano, but the chairman of Pathé, Jerôme Seydoux, has the final say over internal architecture. He doesn’t stop with the company offices, he also dictates the furnishing of the theatre halls and facilities, guided by his sense of luxury. The problem is, he’s not very realistic when it comes to practical things, such as economic and political crises coming about in quick succession and driving up prices of materials and labour, the finer details of civil engineering, or customers’ needs and preferences. As a result, other professionals, like architects, construction engineers and skilled and unskilled workers in various departments, have to step in and do their job so that the building is finished on time.

Le Chantier follows the building work from the beginning of (re-)construction to the opening of the site, but what sets it apart from other documentaries along similar lines is the depth and broadness of its scope. Bron opts for an observational style, which is only occasionally interrupted by dreamy inserts of different cinema-going experiences, ranging from the traditional to the more modern, and from the poshest to the most modest, with a strong sense of community spirit. Cinematographer Blaise Harrison executes his role with ease, as does composer Irène Drésel, who takes us on a journey through different genres and moods which always embody the essence of what’s on screen, though never in a vulgar way.

But Bron’s main achievement is how he presents the complexity of the project from a maximum number of viewpoints, from the chief architect’s initial concept and the investor’s ever-changing vision, via the mid-level experts’ struggle to find solutions for concrete challenges, to the workforce ultimately executing their orders. In his directorial approach, Bron is actually quite egalitarian, since no side or position is depicted as more (or less) important than any other. And kudos goes to editor Julie Lena for the film being kept to a reasonable runtime of 94 minutes, with no danger of abbreviating things to the point they become banal.

Ultimately, Le Chantier serves as a reminder of how humans work and of how complex planning and execution of these visions actually are. This applies to film as well as construction, as there’s no shortage of planning and ops management in that department either. We, the audience, who only consume these things, tend to take them for granted.

Le Chantier is a French-Swiss work produced by Les Films Pelléas and Bande à Part Films in co-production with Pathé France and Radio Télévision Suisse. Pathé International are handling sales.