Grand Central
Feature Film, FR/AT 2013, Farbe, 90 min., OmeU
Diagonale 2016
Director: Rebecca Zlotowski
Script: Gaëlle Macé, Rebecca Zlotowski
Cast: Tahar Rahim, Léa Seydoux, Olivier Gourmet, Denis Ménochet, Johan Libéreau, Nahuel Pérez Biscayart u.a.
Camera: George Lechaptois
Editor: Julien Lacheray
Location Sound: Cédric Deloche
Music: Rob
Sounddesign: Alexis Place, Gwennolé Le Borgne
Production Design: Antoine Platteau
Costumes: Chattoune
Producers: Frédéric Jouve, Gabriele Kranzelbinder
Production: Les Films Velvet
Co-production: KGP Kranzelbinder Gabriele Production
As a temporary employee in a nuclear power
plant — where radiation and health risks are most
acute — Gary finds what he has always been looking
for: money, friendship, and perhaps even love. Yet
his love interest just so happens to be engaged to
a colleague, and Gary quickly finds himself caught
in a love triangle: a fatal situation that finds its harrowing
expression in recurring warning signs. Every
day is a new threat.
Rebecca Zlotowski’s film, the recipient of the
François Chalais Prize at last year’s Cannes Film Festival,
has all the trappings of a cool French arthouse
movie. There are big, brash post-Godardian fonts, in
red, bien sur. There’s some splendidly discombobulating
sound design. There’s an achingly hip central
pairing in Blue Is the Warmest Colour’s Seydoux and
A Prophet’s Rahim. There are Geiger counters, which
come second only to unexploded bombs for inherent
drama. (Tara Brady, The Irish Times)
Zlotowski has turned in a beguiling film that
impresses as much for its oddly specific and wellresearched
setting, as for the romance, and maintains
impressive narrative and tonal control right up
until an ending that falters just at the final hurdle. (Jessica Kiang, The Playlist)
Rebecca Zlotowski’s picture works best when
it’s at its most stark and unadorned, when it focuses
on the dirty nuts and bolts near the nuclear
core. Along the way, Grand Central lifts the
lid on a high-stakes Catch-22 system in which
employees have to keep their radiation levels down
for fear of being laid off a devastating sleight of hand
that effectively makes the sub-contractors responsible
for their own safety. (Xan Brooks, The Guardian