Isabelle Huppert takes on French politics and the nuclear sector in her portrayal of a union representative turned whistle-blower, and the victim of a brutal assault in her own home. La Syndicaliste also asks (yet again) why we don’t believe women when they report assault.
It’s often the music in a film which dictates a scene’s mood or directs a viewer’s emotion. but in La Syndicaliste, the clue is in the colour of Isabelle Huppert’s lipstick.
In a film based on true, horrifying events, Huppert plays Maureen Kearney, a hard-hitting, high-flying union leader in the French nuclear power sector. As the only woman left in an extremely misogynistic environment, she comes across information which causes her to turn whistle-blower. Shortly after, she is subjected to a vicious assault in her own home, and the consequences are widespread.
The first act wastes no time in establishing Maureen Kearney’ kick-ass credentials. She knows her stuff and takes no prisoners in her defence of workers’ rights. The bright red slash of lipstick makes a statement.
Isabelle Huppert, physically slighter and smaller than just about everyone else on screen, needs only the hint of a withering glance to let everyone know who’s in charge. But once the brutal assault has happened, things being to change and the film steers deeper into the realm of psychological or even political thriller/police investigation with a side order of industrial power-broking. Huppert is outstanding, embodying power, emotional self-control and fragility all at the same time, while experiencing an extreme series of events which would have most of us in absolute pieces.
Whether an actual reflection of the real life personalities involved or not, it’s clear how quickly Kearney loses control of events – and her body – to men. Police, doctors, lawyers – the majority are male and the alacrity with which they draw conclusions based on events from Maureen’s past is shocking and extremely disturbing. The red lips disappear too.
The film, based on an essay of the same name by Caroline Michel-Aguirre, raises issues of political and industrial corruption in France, made even more significant as the events portrayed actually occurred – and the French energy industry is feeling the consequences to this day. But it also presses home the continuing problem of women not being believed, of not being ‘good victims’, and of their personal history being automatically drawn in to a specific brutal assault.
Maureen’s story deserves to be told (if she is in agreement) – but it’s another of those occasions where I truly wish that a female director had been given the opportunity to pick it up.